FROM  THE  LIBRARY  OF 
LOUIS  FITZGERALD  BENSON.  D. 

BEQUEATHED  BY  HIM  TO 
THE  LIBRARY  OF 
PRINCETON  THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY 


SONG  STORIES  OF  THE 
SAWDUST  TRAIL 


By 
HOMER 
RODEHEAVER 

The  Famous  Trombone 
Soloist  and  Popular  Lead- 
er of  the  4 4 Billy"  Sunday 
Tabernacle  Choir. 

With  an  Indorsement  and 

Foreword  by 
REV.  WILLIAM  A.  SUNDAY 

If  the  dark  shadows  gather  as  you  go  along, 
Do  not  grieve  for  their  coming,  sing  a  cheery  song! 
There  is  joy  for  the  taking:  it  will  soon  be  light, — 
Every  cloud  wears  a  rainbow,  if  your  heart  keeps  right. 

It  is  literally  true  that  certain  of  the  great  gospel  songs  not  only 
have  sung  their  way  around  the  world,  but  have  sung  their  way  into 
every  class  of  society  and  every  type  of  men  and  women,  from  the  mil- 
lionaire to  the  derelict. 

Never  more  humanly  interesting  material  was  published  than  these 
dramatic  Song  Stories,  which,  while  based  on  the  absolute  truth,  are 
as  engrossing  as  a  piece  of  good  fiction.  Words  and  music  of  the 
famous  songs  of  the  Billy  Sunday  Tabernacle  which  inspired  the  reform - 
i  ations,  etc.,  from  which  the  stories  are  drawn,  are  reproduced.  Mr. 
Kodeheaver,  in  his  capacity  as  choir  leader  in  the  Sunday  meetings,  is 
in  his  own  way  as  effective  and  wields  almost  as  much  influence  as  Mr. 
Sunday  himself,  who  would  be  the  first  to  concede  it. 


Digitized 

by  the  Internet  Archive 

i 

in  2013 

http://archive.org/details/songstsawOOrode 


SONG  STORIES  OF  THE 
SAWDUST  TRAIL 


SONG  STORIES  O 
SAWDUST  TRAI 


22  1932 


BY 

HOMER  RODEHEAVER 


WITH  A  FOREWORD  BY  THE 

REV.  WILLIAM  A.  SUNDAY 


NEW  YORK 
MOFFAT,  YARD  AND  COMPANY 
1917 


FOREWORD 


It  is  a  pleasure  to  endorse  the  songs  of 
Homer  Rodeheaver.  They  have  reclaimed,  and 
redeemed,  and  remade  the  lives  of  thousands  of 
men  and  women.  The  effort  to  tell  in  human 
story  form  the  experiences  of  new  birth  that  have 
resulted  from  these  songs  in  "  The  Song  Stories 
of  the  Saw  Dust  Trail  "  should  do  a  tremendous 
service  for  the  Kingdom. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAOB 

I  Brighten  the  Corner  Where  You  Are  .  1 

II  "My  Father  Watches  Over  Me"  ...  27 

III  "I  Walk  with  the  King"  48 

IV  De  Brewer's  Big  Hosses  61 
V  Molly  and  the  Baby            ~    •    .  .90 

VI    He  Will  not  Let  Me  Fall  110 

VII  Sweeter  as  the  Years  Go  By    .     .     .     .  128 

VIII  His  Love  is  Far  Better  than  Gold    .  .145 

IX  My  Mother's  Prayers  Have  Followed  Me  163 

X  "Are  You  Counting  the  Cost?"   .     .  .183 

XI  "If  Your  Heart  Keeps  Right"    .     .     .  204 


(Words  and  music  of  these  famous  songs  accompany 
each  chapter.) 


SONG  STORIES  OF  THE 
SAWDUST  TRAIL 


Brighten  the  Corner  Where  Ton  Are. 


,  1.  Do    not  wait  un  -  tfl  some  deed  of  great-new  yon  may  do,  Do  not 

2.  Jut     a -bore  are  cloud -ed  skies  that  you  may  help  to  clear, Let  not 

3.  Here  for  all  your  tal  -  ent  you  may  sure  -  ly    find    a  need, Here  re- 


IJ  k 

[rf                 g         9    *  1     :    •    '  '        ft'  — 
wait  to  ahed  your  light  a  -  far,    To  the  man  -y  do-tie 
nar-row  self  your  way  de  -  bar;  Tho'  in  -  to  one  heart 
fleet  the  bright  and  Morning  Star;  E  •  yea  from  your  hum-1 

jit#    g    <>    |f    g=rgf    0    £  if  f  f  f 

I  er  - 

i  -  loner 
)le  hand 

f  I 

er  near  yon 
nay  fall  yonr 
the  bread  of 

C±±f 

now  be  true,  Bright-en  the  cor-ner  where  you  are. 

song  of  cheer, Bright-en  the  cor  ner  where  you  are.   Bright-en  tha  cor-ner 

Mfe  may  feed,Bright-en  the  cor-ner  where  you  are. 

S  £4 


1  T1 — nr—  TT-tT-tr- 

where  you  are!  Bright-en  the  cor-ner  where  you  are!  Some  one  far  from 

Shine  for  Jesus  where  you  are! 

J       J       -J  .    -     -  - 


SONG  STORIES 


i 

BRIGHTEN  THE  CORNER  WHERE  YOU  ARE 

Do  not  wait  until  some  deed  of  greatness  you  may  do, 
Do  not  wait  to  shed  your  light  afar, 

To  the  many  duties  ever  near  you  now  be  true 
Brighten  the  corner  where  you  are. 

Somewhere  in  France,  an  American  boy,  en- 
listed in  the  Foreign  Legion,  is  teaching  a  new 
slogan,  and  perhaps  with  it  is  showing  the  way 
to  a  new  vision.  That  slogan  is  the  chorus  of 
the  song,  "Brighten  the  Corner  where  You 
Are." 

It  is  becoming  the  catchword  of  the  trenches, 
the  correspondent  of  the  New  York  World  at 
the  French  Front  says,  in  telling  the  story. 
Among  the  dying  and  the  starving  soldiers  of 
the  battlefields  to  whom  life  is  seen  through 
the  shadows  of  death,  the  slogan  of  cheer  and 
hope  and  comfort  is  singing  its  message. 

All  the  more  thrilling  a  message,  when  you 

consider  the  simple,  homely  song  that  was  its 
1 


2  BRIGHTEN  THE  CORNER 


inspiration — the  song  of  a  humble  heart.  All 
the  more  thrilling,  when  you  know  that  that 
song  has  literally  sung  its  way  around  the 
world,  touching  high  and  low,  inspiring  deeds 
of  heroism  on  the  battle  field,  as  well  as  deeds 
of  patient  goodness  in  the  most  obscure  cor- 
ners. 

It  was  a  woman  who  wrote  it,  and  she  never, 
in  her  wildest  dreams,  imagined  that  it  would 
become  the  lever  by  which  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands of  lives  would  be  moved.  It  came  to  her 
out  of  the  fullness  of  a  heart,  in  which  the  love 
of  God  blazed,  and  of  what  she  considered  to  be 
the  dim  little  corner  of  life  in  which  she  found 
herself  confined. 

She  had  had  many  ambitions.  She  had 
wanted  to  be  a  writer.  She  had  had  dreams  of 
doing  good  in  the  world  in  a  large,  wonderful 
way.  Hers  was  a  consecrated  heart  and  mind, 
eager  for  the  Lord's  service.  Later,  as  her 
soul  developed,  she  wished  to  carry  the  Gospel 
of  Christ  to  foreign  lands,  or  to  help  in  uplift- 
ing the  poor  and  forlorn  in  the  dark  places  of 
our  great  cities. 

Despite  her  longings,  and  her  steady  appli- 
cation of  her  talents  and  her  prayers  that  a 
way  might  open  to  her,  she  was  relentlessly  re- 
fused what  she  most  desired. 


BRIGHTEN  THE  CORNER  3 


Her  husband  was  a  railway  mail  clerk,  and 
was  often  absent  from  home,  but  the  time 
which  might  otherwise  have  been  occupied  in 
her  literary  work  was  taken  up  by  the  care  of 
her  small  boy,  and  her  father  who  was  an  in- 
valid. 

It  seemed  as  though  she  must  put  her  ambi- 
tions for  the  development  of  her  talents  out  of 
her  life — as  though  it  were  impossible  ever  for 
her  to  reach  into  a  broader  sphere. 

No  one  knows  except  the  person  who  yearns 
to  write  great  and  beautiful  thoughts,  which 
may  some  day  electrify  the  world,  what  a 
heart-ache  and  soul-wrench  it  is  to  have  to 
abandon  those  ambitions. 

It  almost  broke  down  her  cheery  spirit. 
Not  because  she  could  not  find  comfort  in 
knowing  that  she  was  doing  all  that  she  could, 
but  because  her  spirit  ceaselessly  fretted  for 
the  doing  of  larger  things.  It  seemed  to  her 
that  what  she  actually  did  was  so  very,  very 
little. 

One  day,  however,  a  mother  of  the  neighbor- 
hood— poor  and  hard  worked,  too — told  her 
that  the  hours  which  she  passed,  in  her  quiet 
home,  were  the  bright  spots  in  her  life.  That 
set  her  to  thinking. 

Up  to  that  time  she  had  interested  herself, 


4 


BRIGHTEN  THE  CORNER 


of  course,  in  others,  but  she  had  done  it  con- 
scientiously, not  enthusiastically.  She  won- 
dered if  any  spark  from  the  hours  spent  with 
her  would  illuminate  other  lives  in  the  after 
years. 

She  set  herself  to  becoming  an  inspiration  to 
those  about  her.  She  tried  to  throw  the  light 
of  her  own  vision  upon  them.  She  remem- 
bered that  she  might  sow  in  their  hearts  the 
seeds  of  the  love  of  God.  It  was  an  outlet,  a 
little  outlet,  for  the  zeal  which  was  in  her. 

She  set  herself,  resolutely,  to  do  all  that  she 
possibly  could  in  the  little  corner  of  the  world, 
where,  it  seemed,  God  chose  to  keep  her. 

Nothing  in  her  life  was,  apparently,  changed 
by  her  new  feeling.  Nothing  but  herself. 
Within  her,  now,  she  began  to  feel  a  well  of 
happiness.  She  lost  the  sense  of  being  shut 
away  from  the  world.  She  forgot  that  the 
domestic  duties  with  which  she  was  ceaselessly 
occupied  were  little,  trivial  things.  She  saw 
that  certain  tasks  were  given  her  to  do,  and 
that  the  iron  barriers,  which  hemmed  her  in 
from  what  she  had  wanted  to  do,  were  also  the 
restraining  bonds  which  outlined  the  sphere  of 
her  work  and  life. 

Some  of  her  awakened  spiritual  life  began 
to  pour   into   her   brain.    Occasionally  she 


BRIGHTEN  THE  CORNER  5 


wrote  little  verses.  And  one  day,  she  wrote  a 
song.  It  expressed  exactly  what  she  had 
come  to  feel,  and  understand  about  her  own 
life. 

Do  not  wait  until  some  deed  of  greatness  you  may  do, 

Do  not  wait  to  shed  your  light  afar, 
To  the  many  duties  ever  near  you  now  be  true, 

Brighten  the  corner  where  you  are. 

Just  above  are  clouded  skies  that  you  may  help  to  clear, 

Let  not  narrow  self  your  way  debar 
Though  into  one  heart  alone  may  fall  your  song  of  cheer, 

Brighten  the  corner  where  you  are. 

Here  for  all  your  talent  you  may  surely  find  a  need, 
Here  reflect  the  bright  and  morning  star, 

Even  from  your  humble  hand  the  bread  of  life  may  feed, 
Brighten  the  corner  where  you  are. 

Brighten  the  corner  where  you  are, 

Brighten  the  corner  where  you  are, 
Someone  far  from  harbor  you  may  guide  across  the  bar; 

Brighten  the  corner  where  you  are. 

The  history  of  the  song  from  that  date  is  a 
matter  of  gospel  history. 

The  fact  of  its  being  sung  on  the  battle  lines 
of  Europe  is  only  one  instance  of  how  it  has 
covered  the  globe.    Here  is  another: 

At  one  of  our  meetings  a  visitor  introduced 


6 


BRIGHTEN  THE  CORNER 


himself  to  us  as  a  missionary  who  was  home 
from  Siam,  where  he  had  been  on  business  for 
the  Missionary  board  of  his  denomination. 

"You  have  just  sung  a  song,"  he  said, 
"which  I  last  heard  under  most  astonishing  cir- 
cumstances. I  had  gone  into  the  interior  of 
Siam  to  visit  one  of  the  most  remote  of  our 
stations. 

"The  local  missionary  there  and  his  wife  had 
labored  faithfully,  and,  although  they  were  en- 
tirely surrounded  by  a  heathen  race,  they  had 
succeeded  in  making  friends  among  them  so 
that  they  had  developed  a  promising  class  of 
children,  who  were  learning  English  and  who 
were  being  taught  the  ways  of  civilization  and 
the  knowledge  of  the  true  God. 

"A  reception  was  planned  for  the  second 
day  of  my  arrival,  with  recitations  by  some  of 
the  older  children,  songs,  and  a  Bible  service. 
The  first  number  on  the  program  was  a  song. 
I  expected,  of  course,  to  hear  one  of  the  old 
historic  hymns. 

"Imagine  my  surprise,  then — with  prac- 
tically a  jungle  at  our  backs  and  the  tropical 
sun  pouring  down  upon  us — thousands  of 
miles,  it  seemed,  from  the  world  of  today — 
imagine  my  surprise,  when  those  little  native 
children  began  to  sing,  'Brighten  the  corner 


BRIGHTEN  THE  CORNER  7 


where  you  are.'  I  had  last  heard  it  in  the 
Billy  Sunday  Tabernacle  a  year  before." 

"I  am  not  surprised,"  I  replied,  "although 
Siam  is  the  farthest  point  from  which  I  have 
heard  of  the  song.  We  would  hardly  credit 
the  unusual  stories  connected  with  it,  but  I 
think  the  best  of  all  is  the  story  of  how  it  was 
written  in  the  first  place." 

Then  I  told  him  the  story  that  I  have  set 
down  here  of  the  song  itself. 

"You  will  see,"  I  said,  "that  the  author  her- 
self, is  an  inspiring  example  of  the  message, 
which  her  song  teaches.  Brightening  her  own 
little  corner,  she  has  succeeded  in  touching 
literally  the  whole  world.  She  has  brought  a 
deeper  message  to  more  people  than  if  she  had 
succeeded  in  her  early  dreams  of  ambition. 
For  that  message  is  really  singing  itself  around 
the  globe." 

One  of  the  stories  of  her  song  has  to  do  with 
a  man  so  far  away  from  its  author  that,  under 
any  other  conditions,  it  is  almost  impossible 
that  their  lives  should  have  had  any  contact. 

He  is  the  head  of  a  national  business.  He 
is  a  big  man  in  the  world  of  finance,  not  only 
in  this  country,  but  in  others.  Until  a  year 
ago  he  was  just  a  splendid  thinking  machine. 
People  were  afraid  of  him.    His  employers, 


8  BRIGHTEN  THE  CORNER 


even  men  high  in  his  confidence,  found  it  diffi- 
cult to  talk  to  him.  Those  in  subordinate  po- 
sitions trembled  when  he  looked  their  way,  for 
he  never  did  so  unless  he  had  found  a  flaw  in 
their  work. 

He  was  the  kind  of  a  man  who  has  been  de- 
scribed in  fiction  but  whom  you  do  not  often 
see — a  man  of  iron  and  steel.  So  far  as  hav- 
ing emotion,  or  an  unselfish  interest  in  hu- 
manity, he  might  as  well  have  been  a  clever 
piece  of  high-tempered  mechanism. 

One  of  his  business  associates,  said  once,  that 
he  was  so  unfeeling,  so  impersonal,  so  unyield- 
ing that  he  seemed  inhuman. 

One  night,  in  his  wonderful  car,  he  hap- 
pened to  be  driving  past  the  Billy  Sunday 
Tabernacle.  There,  by  the  grace  of  God,  as 
he  declares,  one  of  his  tires  was  punctured. 
While  the  chauffeur  was  repairing  the  break, 
he  sat  in  his  car,  observing  the  thousands  who 
were  crowding  into  the  building. 

He  felt  no  curiosity,  he  said.  He  had,  for 
so  long,  trained  his  mind  to  focus  itself  only 
on  such  matters  as  related  to  his  own  business 
affairs,  that  there  were  many  occurrences  even 
in  his  home  city,  to  which  he  never  gave  a 
thought. 

The  puncture  was  a  bad  one  and  he  grew  a 


BRIGHTEN  THE  CORNER 


9 


little  bored.  The  thousands  and  thousands 
who  kept  pouring  into  the  tabernacle  riveted 
his  attention,  despite  his  struggle,  not  to  be  in- 
terested. He  began  to  wonder  what  the  build- 
ing was,  and  what  was  going  on  inside.  Then 
his  chauffeur  reported  that  he  would  have  to 
put  on  an  emergency  tire. 

The  chauffeur  finished  his  work,  and  looked 
inside  the  car  for  his  employer,  but  he  was 
not  there. 

A  boy,  who  was  standing  near,  told  him  that 
the  other  had  gone  into  the  tabernacle.  The 
chauffeur  was  so  surprised  that  he  nearly 
fainted,  for  he  had  never  known  his  employer 
to  attend  any  meeting  but  a  Board  meeting  of 
financiers. 

Among  those  who  "hit  the  trail"  that  night 
was  the  man  of  iron  and  steel.  He  sat  down 
in  his  turn  to  wait  for  us  to  write  down  his 
name,  his  address,  and  his  church  preferences, 
as  we  always  do,  and  to  one  of  the  workers 
who  approached  him  for  that  purpose  he  gave 
something  of  .  his  remarkable  story. 

Some  converts  seem  dazed  by  the  experi- 
ence, through  which  they  have  just  gone,  and 
some  are  so  happy  that  they  cannot  help  cry- 
ing, but  the  man  of  iron  and  steel  was  simply 
more  efficient,  more  composed,  and  more  keen 


10  BRIGHTEN  THE  CORNER 


than  Ui>ual.  He  had  already  analyzed  his  own 
change  of  heart,  and  wanted  to  tell  about  it. 

"I  don't  suppose  a  man  like  you  can  realize 
how  I  could  have  become  so  cold  and  indiffer- 
ent to  everyone,  and  everything  in  the  world 
as  I  have  become,"  he  said.  "I  began  my  busi- 
ness life  when  I  was  a  very  young  man.  All 
I  thought  about  was  money.  I  saw  that  many 
men  failed  to  get  money  because  they  stopped 
for  other  things,  and  I  determined  that  I  would 
so  train  my  mind  that  it  would  not  recognize 
the  existence  of  anything  else  but  money.  I 
succeeded.  I  taught  myself  to  look  on  those 
around  me  as  so  many  shadows  out  of  which  I 
could  extract  what  I  wanted. 

"I  have  not  married,  and  so  family  life  did 
not  have  an  opportunity  to  soften  me.  I  don't 
think  I  ever  loved  a  person  in  my  life,  cer- 
tainly not  since  I  was  a  man.  I  have  never 
given  a  thought  to  friendship  in  my  life,  I 
never  read  books  that  dealt  with  sentiment,  I 
never  read  anything  in  the  newspapers  but 
the  financial  reports,  I  care  nothing  for  music 
or  the  arts. 

"When  I  came  here  tonight  I  did  not  even 
know  what  was  going  on.  I  had  to  wait  out- 
side while  my  chauffeur  put  on  a  new  tire  and 
I  was  bored. 


BRIGHTEN  THE  CORNER  11 


"I  listened,  tonight,  for  the  first  time,  to  men 
talking  about  the  things  I  have  always  refused 
to  consider — God  and  Humanity.  Then 
there  came  that  song,  'Brighten  the  Corner' 
and  in  its  simple  melody  and  message  I  heard 
something  that  finished  my  decision.  I'm  go- 
ing to  begin  the  job  of  brightening  my  corner 
on  business  lines!" 

The  degree  and  extent  to  which  he  kept  his 
word  is  common  talk  in  his  home  city  and  state. 
He  is  a  man  now  to  whom  his  associates  go  for 
help  when  they  are  in  tight  places.  He  has 
given  royally  to  every  humanitarian  cause 
which  has  come  to  his  notice.  He  is  a  power, 
now,  in  that  church,  of  which  he  was  a  merely 
nominal  member  for  so  many  years.  And  in 
his  office,  among  his  associates  and  his  em- 
ployees, he  is  the  friend,  the  adviser,  the  sym- 
pathetic, ever-ready  listener,  who  is  all  but 
adored  by  those  who  know  him. 

Here  is  another  story  from  another  extreme 
of  society: 

A  bright-faced,  energetic  woman  gave  her 
experience  after  the  afternoon  meeting  one 
day. 

She  is  the  forewoman  in  a  factory,  which 
manufactures  clothing.  Many  girls  and 
women  are  under  her  supervision. 


12  BRIGHTEN  THE  CORNER 


"I  used  to  be  proud  of  getting  the  most  work 
out  of  my  floor  of  any  superintendent  in  the 
place/'  she  said.  "I  was  known  as  a  'driver.* 
Of  course  those  who  worked  under  me  did  not 
like  me,  but  that,  I  thought,  couldn't  be  helped. 

"Then  I  came  to  the  Sunday  Tabernacle, 
one  night,  and  heard  a  song  called  'Brighten 
the  Corner  where  You  Are.'  I  didn't  think 
so  much  about  its  message  at  first,  but  I  liked 
its  melody,  and  I  found  myself  humming  it 
when  I  went  home. 

"I  am  a  hard  working  woman,  supporting 
myself  and  a  younger  sister,  and  a  member  of 
a  church,  to  which  I  give  what  I  can  spare.  It 
had  never  occurred  to  me  that  I  could  do  more, 
but  as  I  heard  that  song  sung  again  and  again 
(for  after  that  I  came  almost  every  night  to 
the  meetings)  I  began  to  ask  myself,  what  was 
my  corner. 

"And  I  answered  myself  that  it  was  my 
home,  my  church,  and  the  place  where  I 
worked.  And  right  there  was  where  I  began 
to  see  something  I  had  never  seen  before.  I 
didn't  know  a  thing  about  the  people  who 
worked  under  me,  except  their  names,  and  how 
much  I  got  out  of  them,  when  we  were  run- 
ning over  time. 

"The  first  thing  I  did  was  to  get  one  of  your 


BRIGHTEN  THE  CORNER  IS 


workers  to  hold  a  noonday  meeting  on  my 
floor.  Now  we  have  a  fraternity  organization, 
of  which  I  am  President,  which  aims  to  help 
the  members  when  they  are  sick  or  in  trouble, 
to  hold  religious  meetings,  once  a  week,  at 
some  member's  house,  and  to  see  that  no  one  is 
lonely  or  without  human  sympathy.  I  hon- 
estly thought,  when  I  began  it,  that  my  effi- 
ciency and  the  output  of  my  floor  would  be 
diminished.  I  thought  that  as  soon  as  I 
stopped  being  a  driver,  a  woman  who  was 
known  to  be  stern  and  unrelenting,  that  I 
would  have  difficulty  with  my  work. 

"But  just  the  contrary  is  the  case.  Only 
last  week,  the  influence  of  our  organization  was 
powerful  enough  to  stop  a  strike  which  cer- 
tain unprincipled  persons  had  tried  to  start. 
And  as  for  the  quantity  of  our  work,  I  never 
have  to  complain,  any  more  than  I  did  before. 
We  are  all  trying  to  brighten  our  corners,  and 
we  know  that  that  means  good,  hard  work, 
done  with  all  our  hearts." 

Some  of  the  stories  about  this  song  have  a 
real  heart  throb. 

A  woman,  who  attended  our  services,  in  one 
city,  attracted  us  by  the  wonderful  expression 
of  happiness  on  her  face,  and  by  the  great 
sweetness  of  her  eyes,  so  that  we  were  glad  to 


14  BRIGHTEN  THE  CORNER 


have  her  approach  us,  toward  the  end  of  our 
stay  there,  and  to  hear  her  story. 

She  told  us  that,  more  than  a  year  before, 
she  had  been  in  a  distant  city,  where  they  were 
holding  a  campaign  then,  and  had  attended 
frequently. 

But  she  had  not  been  vitally  touched.  She 
was  so  unhappy,  and  so  depressed  that  the 
word  of  God  did  not  seem  to  have  any  mean- 
ing for  her.  She  was  reticent  as  to  the  cause, 
but  let  us  understand  that  differences  had 
arisen  between  her  husband  and  herself,  which 
had  resulted  in  a  practical  separation  between 
them,  although  they  still  continued  to  occupy 
their  home. 

"But  I  was  a  broken  hearted  woman,"  she 
told  us.  "I  had  no  real  interest  in  life.  To- 
ward my  husband  I  was  cold  and  reserved.  I 
spoke  to  him  only  when  courtesy  forced  me  to 
do  so,  but  our  home  was  as  silent  and  dull  as 
though  no  one  lived  in  it. 

"I  felt  that  I  was  the  injured  person,  and 
my  pride  kept  me  from  considering  that  there 
might  be  another  phase  to  the  matter. 

"After  I  returned  home  from  your  services, 
I  kept  thinking  of  the  messages  I  had  heard, 
and  especially  of  the  songs,  among  which  there 
was  one  which  rang  in  my  ears,  day  and  night. 


BRIGHTEN  THE  CORNER  15 


It  was  the  song,  which  everyone  likes  so  much, 
'Brighten  the  corner  where  you  are.' 

"I  had  really  got  so  far,  as  to  think  of  sep- 
arating from  my  husband,  in  fact,  as  well  as 
in  spirit.  I  blamed  him  for  our  unhappiness, 
and  I  grew  more  and  more  sullen  toward  him. 

"One  night  I  woke  and  lay  for  hours,  unable 
to  sleep,  and  all  at  once  I  seemed  to  see  that 
sentence  in  letters  of  fire  across  the  blackness : 

"  Let  not  narrow  self  your  way  debar." 

I  sat  up  in  bed  and  cried  out,  and  saw  my 
faults,  in  one  flash.  I  remembered  a  great 
many  things  that  I  had  allowed  myself  to  for- 
get. 

"I  remembered  many  times  when  I  had  re- 
fused to  meet  my  husband  half  way.  I  knew 
that  for  a  long  time  I  had  been  allowing  my- 
self to  be  sullen  and  angry,  and  that  I  had  kept 
the  thought  of  God  and  what  He  wanted  of 
me  away  from  my  life. 

"I  hadn't  brightened  any  of  my  corner.  I 
was  bad  tempered  to  my  friends  and  servants. 
There  wasn't  a  helpful  thing  in  the  world  that 
I  had  had  any  thought  for. 

"I  began,  right  away,  to  try  to  change.  I 
was  afraid,  I  think,  to  hope  that  my  husband 
and  I  would  be  happy  again,  but  I  determined 


16  BRIGHTEN  THE  CORNER 


that  he  should  have  a  different  sort  of  home, 
anyway,  so  that  day  I  tried  to  be  companion- 
able at  dinner,  and  afterward  I  went  into  the 
music  room  and  played  for  him. 

"He  didn't  say  anything,  but  sat  and  lis- 
tened to  me.  Then  I  began  with  my  friends. 
I  returned  their  visits,  and  I  began  taking  an 
interest  in  the  lives  of  my  servants.  My  hus- 
band did  not  say  anything  for  weeks,  and,  al- 
though I  suffered  terribly  at  the  thought  that 
he  would  never  care  for  me  again,  I  kept  on. 

"Then  one  evening,  while  I  was  trying  to 
keep  up  a  cheery  conversation,  and  he  sat  si- 
lent, and  reserved,  he  suddenly  asked  me  if  it 
could  be  possible  that  I  was  trying  to  win  him 
back  to  happiness.  Before  I  knew  it,  we  were 
crying  in  each  other's  arms.  Since  then  we 
have  been  trying  to  show  our  gratitude  for  our 
happiness  by  brightening  every  life  that  we 
touch." 

So  then  I  told  her,  too,  of  how  the  song  came 
to  be  written,  and  of  some  of  the  things  it  had 
inspired  persons  to  do  and  to  be. 

In  one  of  the  cities  that  we  visited,  the 
woman  who  did  our  laundry  work  fell  under 
the  influence  of  the  song. 

She  was  a  good,  hard-working,  Irish  woman, 
with  four  children  to  support.    Her  husband 


BRIGHTEN  THE  CORNER  17 


had  deserted  her  years  before,  and  by  her  own 
efforts  she  had  succeeded  in  rearing  them,  and 
in  sending  them  to  school. 

A  better  hearted,  more  earnest  woman  it 
would  have  been  hard  to  find,  but  in  spite  of 
this  she  was  of  a  morose,  gloomy  disposition. 
It  was  difficult  for  anyone  really  to  blame  her 
who  knew  the  circumstances  of  her  life,  but  it 
undoubtedly  made  her  little  home  most  un- 
happy, and  forbidding.  The  older  girl  and 
boy  caused  the  mother  a  great  deal  of  anxiety 
by  their  tendency  to  stay  out  late  at  night,  not 
really  doing  any  harm,  but  seeking  for  that 
gayety  and  amusement  which  their  youth  de- 
manded. The  younger  children  were  fretful 
and  hard  to  discipline.  She  complained  to 
me  several  times,  saying  that  it  seemed  hard 
that  a  woman  who  worked  as  she  did  to  bring 
up  a  family,  single-handed,  and  to  put  them  in 
the  way  of  an  education  and  a  respectable  life, 
should  have  such  ungrateful  children. 

Not  understanding,  at  the  time,  her  fault  in 
the  matter,  we  suggested  that  she  should  bring 
the  two  older  children  to  the  meetings.  It 
might  attract  them,  we  told  her.  Many  chil- 
dren had  been  won  to  God  by  the  campaigns. 

She  shook  her  head  and  said,  plaintively, 
that  for  years  she  had  never  been  able  to  go 


18  BRIGHTEN  THE  CORNER 


anywhere  at  night  or  on  Sunday.  All  of  her 
waking  hours  must  be  spent  in  her  washing  and 
ironing  if  she  did  not  want  to  lose  her  home. 
But  she  promised  to  have  the  children  go. 

The  next  time  she  brought  the  washing  she 
reported  that  the  children  were  attending  the 
meetings  every  night.  She  was  pleased,  but 
no  doubt  as  soon  as  we  went  away,  they  would 
drift  into  bad  habits,  again.  She  was  not  at 
all  hopeful. 

We  tried  to  encourage  her,  but  she  refused 
to  believe  that  they  might  be  permanently 
helped. 

After  that  we  did  not  see  her  until  we  were 
just  leaving.  She  brought  the  clothes  home, 
as  it  happened,  when  we  were  not  there. 

On  her  last  visit,  however,  we  stared  at  her 
the  moment  she  came  into  the  room.  She  was 
changed  in  some  way,  and  we  could  not  make 
out,  at  first  just  what  it  was.  Then  it  flashed 
on  us.  She  had  always  been  such  a  sad,  worn, 
melancholy  looking  creature,  and  now  she  was 
smiling  so  that  her  worn  features  seemed  al- 
most radiant. 

"You  look  happy,  this  morning,"  some  one 
said.  "Have  your  children  improved  their 
ways?" 

She  shook  her  head,  and  said,  with  the  touch 


BRIGHTEN  THE  CORNER  19 


of  a  brogue  which  made  her  speech  quaint,  that 
it  was  not  the  children  who  had  improved,  but 
herself.  Here  is  the  substance  of  what  she 
told  us: 

She  had  been  a  sick  woman  with  a  young 
baby  when  her  husband  left  her,  after  years 
in  which  she  had  done  her  best  to  make  him 
happy,  and  to  win  him  to  a  sober  and  decent 
life.  It  had  embittered  her  to  find  that  all  her 
efforts  had  been  useless.  She  felt  that  God 
had  not  helped  her,  that  He  had,  in  fact,  been 
most  unfair  to  her. 

At  first,  she  had  had  to  appeal  to  the  Char- 
ity Society  to  help  her,  and  that  had  hurt  her 
sturdy  pride  so  much  that  she  felt  she  could 
"never  hold  up  her  head  again."  Then,  as 
she  grew  stronger,  she  had  found  work,  but 
work  of  the  hardest  kind,  to  do. 

Years  and  years  went  on,  without  any  news 
of  her  missing  husband,  and  without  her  being 
able  to  do  more  than  barely  keep  the  roof  over 
the  heads  of  herself  and  children  and  food  in 
their  mouths. 

She  had  forgotten  in  her  physical  struggle, 
that  children  need  more  than  material  things, 
that  their  young  hearts  need  happiness — that 
they  cannot  take  a  mother's  love  for  granted, 
but  must  have  some  expression  of  it. 


20  BRIGHTEN  THE  CORNER 


And  so  the  older  children,  finding  their  home 
so  unhappy  and  cold,  had  begun  to  take  to 
the  streets  for  their  play-ground.  It  was  at 
this  point  that  she  had  coaxed  them  into  going 
to  one  of  our  meetings. 

Contrary  to  her  dismal  expectations,  the 
youngsters  were  immediately  interested.  But 
still  she  went  about  her  duties  with  her  face 
long,  and  her  usual  frown,  although  the  chil- 
dren were  beginning  to  make  the  house  ring 
with  a  strange  music  in  songs  they  had  heard 
in  the  Tabernacle.  One  song  seemed  to  be 
their  favorite. 

It  was  "Brighten  the  Corner  Where  You 
Are." 

The  washerwoman  said  it  was  as  though 
somebody  had  given  her  a  sudden  slap  when 
she  began  to  take  in  the  meaning  of  the  words, 
as  they  were  sung  by  her  own  children,  whom 
she  had  almost  driven  to  the  streets  by  her 
sourness  of  manner  and  character. 

The  fault  in  their  home  life  had  not  been 
due  to  the  children  but  to  herself. 

She  taught  herself  to  laugh.  "And  God, 
Himself,  only  knows  how  hard  that  was!"  she 
said  with  her  Irish  brogue  and  her  wonderful 
Irish  smiles. 

She  had  bought  some  games  for  the  chil- 


BRIGHTEN  THE  CORNER  21 


dren.  She  allowed  them  to  race  and  romp 
around  the  house.  She  encouraged  them  to 
bring  in  their  playmates.  Once  in  a  while 
she  spared  a  little  time  and  money  to  make 
them  some  molasses  taffy,  and  to  allow  them  an 
hour  in  the  kitchen  for  a  candy  ' 'pull.' 1 

"Sure,  it's  brightenin'  th'  corner  I  am!"  she 
said,  as  she  finished  her  story. 

Once,  as  one  of  my  friends  was  getting  my 
collars  from  a  Chinese  laundry  a  few  blocks 
from  the  tabernacle,  he  heard  a  queer,  fal- 
setto voice  singing  words  which  sounded 
vaguely  familiar. 

"Blighten  the  colna  wel  you  al!"  was  what 
reached  his  ears. 

The  proprietor,  a  very  bright,  well  educated 
Chinese,  called  the  singer  from  the  tubs,  and 
in  his  odd,  clipped  speech,  he  began  to  tell  him 
another  story  of  the  results  of  that  marvelous 
little  song. 

He  was  a  "Chlistian"  now,  he  said.  He  had 
hit  the  "tlail,"  as  he  called  it.  He  did  not 
know,  very  well,  how  to  sing  "Melican" 
fashion,  but  he  loved  that  "Blighten  the  Colna" 
song. 

Chang,  today,  has  established  one  of  the 
most  unique  Christian  enterprises  in  the  coun- 
try.   He  has  formed  a  little  school  over  a 


22  BRIGHTEN  THE  CORNER 


stable  where  he  holds  meetings  for  the  mem- 
bers of  his  own  race.  He  has  interested  sev- 
eral women  of  the  neighborhood  in  his  work, 
who  teach  English  classes  twice  a  week.  One 
of  them  is  a  vocal  instructor,  who  is  laboring 
with  the  difficulties  of  training  the  Chinese 
throat  into  a  normal  pitch,  instead  of  the  high 
falsetto,  natural  to  the  race. 

She  writes  that  Chang  is  really  inspired. 
He  has  even  brought  to  conversion  several 
American  customers  of  the  laundry,  where  he 
is  still  employed.  He  has  succeeded  in  Chris- 
tianizing his  employer,  one  of  the  most  inscrut- 
able and  suave  of  Chinamen,  all  the  harder  to 
touch  because  of  his  many-sided  mental  de- 
velopment, for  he  is  an  accomplished  Confu- 
cian scholar,  and  can  argue  on  any  religion,  or 
about  any  form  of  philosophy. 

Chang  loves  to  sing,  and  it  is  the  grief  of 
his  life  that  he  has  never  succeeded  in  acquir- 
ing that  gift.  Also,  it  has  been  impossible,  so 
far,  for  him  to  master  English.  He  still 
"Blightens"  his  corners  and  otherwise  allows 
the  letter  "r"  to  elude  him,  but  in  earnestness, 
the  purity  of  his  life,  and  the  intentness  of  his 
missionary  spirit  he  overcomes  these  obstacles. 

It  is  only  recently  that  his  American  associ- 
ates learned  that  his  first  effort  at  brightening 


BRIGHTEN  THE  CORNER  23 


his  corner  was  to  conquer  his  own  habit  of  tak- 
ing opium.  What  he  must  have  suffered  in 
his  solitary  task  of  self-reformation,  no  one 
can  imagine,  unless  they  know  something  of 
the  fearful  toll  which  that  drug  exacts  from 
those  who  seek  to  release  themselves  from  its 
blight. 

Usually,  the  services  of  a  doctor  and  nurses 
and  special  treatment  are  necessary,  as  well 
as  the  most  earnest  efforts  of  the  subject,  him- 
self.   Yet  Chang  accomplished  it  alone. 

And  sometimes,  in  his  meetings  over  the 
stable,  he  tells  of  his  experience.  He  says 
that  when  he  was  so  racked  and  torn  by  his 
fight  that  he  thought  he  would  surely  die,  he 
tried  to  sing,  and  he  sang  over  and  over  the 
song  which  had  first  made  him  realize  the 
beginning  of  his  upward  way  was  to  remove 
the  darkness  which  had  for  so  long  shrouded 
his  soul. 

This  is  a  far,  far  cry  from  the  author  of 
the  little  song — in  her  quiet  home,  following 
her  domestic  duties,  and  thinking  that  the 
scope  of  her  influence  must  always  be  confined 
within  four  walls,  isn't  it? 

God's  message  knows  no  limits  of  space,  or 
society,  or  race,  or  creed. 

And  it  was  God's  message  which  she  has 


24  BRIGHTEN  THE  CORNER 


sung  to  the  world  in  her  humbly  offered  song. 

Just  above  are  clouded  skies  you  may  help  to  clear 

Let  not  narrow  self  your  way  debar 
Though  into  one  heart  alone  may  fall  your  song  of  cheer, 

Brighten  the  corner  where  you  are. 


My  Father  Watches  Over  Me. 


I«t.  W.  C.  M.rtta. 


T — r 

1.  I  trust  in  God  wber  -  ev-er    1  may   be,   Up  •  on  the  land  or 

2.  He  makes  the  rose  an  ob-ject  of  His  care,   He  guides  the  ea  -  gle 

3.  I  trust  in  God,  for,  in  the  li-onJe  den,   On  bat-  tie-field,  or 

4.  The  val-ley  may"  be  dark, the  shadows  deep,          But  0,  the  Shep-berd 


on  the  roll-  ing  sea,  For.come  what  may,  From dav to  day,  Myheav'nly 
thro' the  pathless  air,  Andsure-lyHe  .  re-mem-bers  me—  My  heav'nly 
in  the  pris-on  pen,  Thro'  praise  or  blame,  Thro'  flood  or  flame,  Myheav'nly 
guards  His  lonely  sheep;    And  thro'  the  gloom  He'll  lead  me  home,  My  heav'nly 


Cbobus. 


Fa-ther  watches  o  -  vcr    me.      I  trust  in  God,— 1  know  He  cares  for 

^       ^    ^    ^    -»-•  -0-  J-  . 


me     On  mountain  b'eak  or   on   the  storm-y 

He  cares  for    me,  On     mount-tin  bleak         or  on  the 


"MY  FATHER  WATCHES  OVER  ME" 
My  Fattier  Watches  Over  Me. 


II 


"my  father  watches  oyer  me" 

I  trust  in  God,  wherever  I  may  be, 
Upon  the  land  or  on  the  rolling  sea: 
For  come  what  may,  from  day  to  day, 
My  heavenly  Father  watches  over  me. 

How  far  down  can  a  man  go — and  still  be 
reclaimed? 

How  near  can  he  get  to  the  bottom — and 
come  up  again? 

This  is  the  story  of  a  man,  who  was  first  the 
victim  of  environment,  and  then  a  victim  of 
circumstances,  and  last,  and  most  fatal,  a  vic- 
tim of  himself. 

And  yet  Robert  Steele  came  back  again. 
Behind  him  was  a  prison  record.  He  had 
sunk  hopelessly  into  the  grip  of  alcohol.  He 
had  no  education,  or  moral  soundness  on  which 
to  build.  His  inspiration  was  gone — his  faith 
in  himself  was  lost. 

And  yet  a  song  snatched  him  up  from  the 
mire — and  remade  his  life. 

27 


28    "MY  FATHER  WATCHES  OVER  ME" 

There  are  those  who  would  call  the  reclaim- 
ing of  such  a  man  a  miracle.  I  call  it  the 
spirit  of  God  singing  into  his  life. 

To  understand  his  history,  and  the  final 
crisis  that  marked  the  turning  of  the  way, 
when  it  seemed  the  darkest,  let  us  take  a  bird's 
eye  view  of  his  life. 

Robert  Steele  didn't  start  as  a  bad  boy. 
Few  so-called  bad  men  ever  do.  So  the  story 
doesn't  begin  in  the  gutter.  The  gutter  is  the 
end — never  the  beginning. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  Robert  Steele  didn't 
enter  life  with  any  particular  handicap. 

He  was  the  only  child  of  decent  parents. 
His  father  was  a  hard  working  men,  who  made 
a  good  salary,  and  his  mother  a  thrifty  woman, 
who  tried  to  keep  the  home  atmosphere  bright 
and  cheery,  and  her  son  clean,  and  "out  of 
mischief,"  but  all  her  energies  were  bent  for 
the  bodily  comfort  of  her  son  and  her  husband. 
Their  spiritual  welfare  never  entered  into  her 
mind. 

About  the  only  time  little  Bob  ever  heard 
anything  about  God  was  when  he  got  into  mis- 
chief, and  his  mother  told  him  that  if  he  didn't 
mend  his  ways,  God  would  surely  punish  him. 
The  child  came  to  look  upon  this  something 
his  mother  called  "God"  with  anything  but 


"MY  FATHER  WATCHES  OVER  ME"  29 


love.  Fear  and  rebellion  rose  in  his  little  heart 
against  him.  Fear  of  the  punishment  he  would 
mete  out,  and  rebellion  that  somebody  he  had 
never  seen  had  the  power  and  the  right  to  mete 
out  that  punishment  to  him. 

His  father  was  the  brightest  spot  in  young 
Bob's  life.  When  he  came  home  from  work 
there  was  always  a  stick  of  candy  "for  the  boy" 
somewhere  in  his  pockets,  and  nights,  after 
supper,  there  was  always  a  place  on  his  knee, 
while  he  read  the  evening  paper. 

And,  when  Bob  was  tired,  and  fretful,  Dad 
would  take  his  big  gold  watch  from  his  pocket, 
and  hold  it  to  his  ear  for  his  entertainment. 

On  Sundays  and  Holidays,  his  father  took 
him  to  parks  and  on  boats — to  places  where 
there  were  crowds  of  people,  pushing  and  shov- 
ing each  other,  and  sweltering  in  the  heat  of 
summer  days,  and  enjoying  themselves  or 
thinking  they  did,  and  Bob's  father  would  put 
him  on  a  horse  on  a  merry-go-round,  that 
whirled  so  quickly  he  couldn't  see  the  people 
standing  around.  Bob  never  forgot  those 
things. 

Bob's  mother  was  raising  a  fine  boy — so  all 
the  neighbors  said — but  Bob's  father  gave  him 
a  good  time,  and  boylike,  Bob  loved  a  good 
time. 


30    "MY  FATHER  WATCHES  OVER  ME" 


Things  might  have  gone  on  so  until  Bob 
grew  up  and  became  a  man,  and  possessed  a 
little  Bob  of  his  own — if  a  group  of  men  hadn't 
brought  his  father  home  one  day.  They  said 
he  had  fallen  under  a  car  and  been  injured. 
They  put  him  to  bed,  and  he  never  got  up 
again. 

His  mother  pushed  a  table  over  close  to  his 
bed,  and  there  were  a  lot  of  queer-looking  little 
bottles,  with  colored  stuff  in  them,  on  the  table, 
and  Dad's  big  gold  watch  lay  open  beside 
them. 

Bob  used  to  climb  on  the  bed,  and  sit  with 
his  father  for  hours,  but  his  father  didn't  talk 
much,  and  Bob  would  watch  the  little  second 
hand  of  the  watch  go  round. 

One  day  his  father  was  looking  at  him. 

"You  like  that  watch,  don't  you,  son?"  he 
asked. 

"Bet  I  do,  Dad,"  was  the  response,  "when 
I'm  a  big  man  I'm  going  to  have  one  like  it." 

His  father  sighed,  and  laid  his  head  on  his 
pillow. 

"You're  going  to  have  that  one,  now,  Bob," 
he  said,  "it's  yours — take  good  care  of  it." 

Bob  was  delighted.  He  wanted  to  thank 
his  father  with  a  hug  and  a  kiss,  and  he  turned 
to  him,  but  something  in  the  calm,  pale  face 


"MY  FATHER  WATCHES  OVER  ME"  31 


arrested  him — he  climbed  down  from  the  bed, 
and  ran  out  into  the  kitchen  to  his  mother. 

"Daddy's  all  white,"  he  told  her,  "and  I'm 
afraid." 

His  mother  dashed  into  the  sick  room — she 
looked  at  her  husband,  and  then,  with  a  cry 
of  grief,  she  threw  herself  on  her  knees  beside 
the  bed,  and  sobbed.  The  boy  knelt  down  be- 
side her,  and  sobbed,  too,  because  he  thought 
it  was  the  right  thing  to  do.  Bye  and  bye  she 
took  him  in  her  arms,  and  cried  over  him,  and 
then  more  things  happened. 

People  came  and  went,  and  they  nearly  all 
cried  too,  and  there  was  a  funeral  and  lots  of 
flowers,  for  most  everybody  liked  Bob's  father; 
they  said  "he  was  a  good  fellow." 

After  that,  there  was  no  more  "dad."  His 
mother  wore  dull  black  dresses,  and  she  didn't 
hum  as  she  went  about  her  work,  and  later 
on,  he  was  sent  to  school,  and  he  "got  in  with 
the  other  kids,"  and  began  to  forget  about  his 
father,  but  not  altogether — the  memory  of 
dad's  kindness  to  him  never  left  him — no  one 
had  ever  been  so  good  to  him.  His  "mother 
was  all  right — but  not  the  way  dad  had  been." 

Then  a  strange  thing  happened — he  came 
home  one  day,  and  his  mother  introduced  him 
to  a  man,  who  she  said  was  going  to  be  his  new 


32    "MY  FATHER  WATCHES  OVER  ME! 


papa,  and  the  man  patted  him  on  the  shoulder, 
and  said  he  was  a  fine  little  lad,  and  he  hoped 
they  would  get  on  together. 

Bob  stared  at  the  man,  and  at  his  mother — 
and  finally  left  the  room.  It  might  be  a  fine 
thing  to  have  a  new  "dad,"  one  who  would  be 
as  good  to  him  as  that  other  "dad,"  who  would 
never  come  home  again — but,  somehow,  a  lump 
arose  in  the  boy's  throat  at  the  thought. 

And  Bob's  mother  married  again,  and — but 
let  Bob  tell  his  own  story,  as  he  told  it  to  us, 
in  the  simple,  direct  earnestness  of  a  man,  who 
is  keeping  nothing  back,  and  who  is  trying  to 
make  you  understand  him  and  his  life,  just  as 
he  lived  it. 

The  man's  sincerity  can't  be  doubted. 
Whether  you  believe  in  his  story  or  not,  he 
believes  it  thoroughly,  himself.  There  is  no 
doubt  of  that. 

"From  the  first  my  step -father  and  I  didn't 
take  to  each  other.  Of  course,  I  was  only  a 
kid  about  ten  years  old.  I  was  going  to  the 
public  school  in  our  district,  and,  up  to  that 
time,  I  was  doing  fair  enough,  but  that  new 
father  of  mine  somehow  put  a  kink  into  me 
all  round. 

"Nothing  I  did  for  him  seemed  to  be  right, 
and,  after  a  while,  I  didn't  want  to  do  any- 


"MY  FATHER  WATCHES  OVER  ME"  33 


thing.  Mother  began  to  change  too,  and  to 
scold  and  nag  me  more  than  she  had  ever  done 
before. 

"I  began  to  play  'hooky'  from  school,  and 
'shooting  craps'  with  boys,  nearly  twice  as  old 
as  I  was.  My  step-father  caught  me  at  it  one 
day,  and  gave  me  a  thrashing.  It  was  the 
first  one  I  had  ever  had,  and  I  didn't  like  it. 
I  think  if  he  had  talked  to  me  in  the  right  way 
even  then  things  might  have  been  changed.  I 
was  just  a  sullen,  soured  kid,  and  no  one 
seemed  to  think  it  worth  while  to  try  to  under- 
stand me. 

"Then,  to  make  matters  worse,  another  child 
was  born  to  my  mother,  and  she  made  me 
think  more  than  ever  that  she  had  forgotten 
all  about  me. 

"One  day  my  mother  gave  me  a  sharp  scold- 
ing about  something,  and  said  she  would  speak 
to  my  father.  I  flew  up,  and  told  her  he 
wasn't  my  father,  and  the  neighbors  said  he 
had  married  her  because  of  the  money  my  own 
father  had  left  from  his  wages  and  insurance. 

"Of  course,  I  had  no  right  to  say  it,  and, 
when  her  husband  heard  it,  there  was  a  lively 
scene,  and  from  that  time  things  were  almost 
unbearable. 

"About  a  month  later  I  saw  that  my  step- 


34    "MY  FATHER  WATCHES  OVER  ME" 

father  had  appropriated  dad's  watch,  the  one 
he  had  left  for  me  with  his  last  words. 

"I  told  him  it  was  my  watch,  that  he  had 
no  right  to  it — and  I  was  black  and  blue  all 
over  when  he  was  finished  with  me.  That 
night,  I  slipped  into  his  room  when  he  was 
asleep,  and  took  the  watch — it  was  mine,  didn't 
my  own  dad  give  it  to  me?  I  stole  a  ride  on 
a  freight  train  to  the  next  town.  I  didn't  care 
what  happened  to  me.  If  my  dad  had  only 
lived ! 

"My  mother's  husband  didn't  make  much 
complaint  about  my  leaving,  or  taking  the 
watch.  He  knew  well  enough  where  I  was, 
because  he  saw  me  when  he  was  driving 
through  the  town  one  afternoon.  But  he 
seemed  more  interested  in  a  corner  saloon  than 
he  did  in  me,  and  he  never  stopped. 

"When  I  was  about  sixteen,  I  drifted  into 
Cleveland.  I  had  become  a  strong,  husky 
young  fellow,  and  I  got  a  job  at  the  docks, 
hauling  freight  onto  a  lake  boat,  bound  for 
Buffalo.  I  began  to  make  pretty  good  money. 
The  work  was  hard,  but  I  had  muscles  like 
an  ox.  Strange  to  say,  I  wasn't  a  spend-thrift. 
There  seemed  to  be  a  streak  of  economy  in 
me,  even  as  a  boy,  and  I  even  began  to  dream 
about  owning  my  own  boat  some  day. 


"MY  FATHER  WATCHES  OVER  ME"  35 

"On  Sundays,  when  I  was  all  dressed  up 
in  a  good  suit,  with  dad's  watch  in  my  pocket, 
I  wasn't  such  a  bad  looking  chap.  But  all 
I  was  thinking  of  was  saving  my  money.  It 
became  a  kind  of  a  mania  with  me.  I  worked 
on  the  docks  about  four  years,  and  had  laid 
by  a  tidy  bank  roll. 

"One  day  Captain  Hussy,  who  ran  one  of 
the  biggest  boats  to  Buffalo,  said,  'Bob,  if  you 
want  a  berth  on  my  boat,  come  on,  it's  waiting 
for  you.' 

"The  captain  was  a  fine  fellow,  kind  of — 
reminded  me  of  my  own  dad.  I  had  charge 
of  the  cargoes,  checked  'em  up,  and  all  that. 
I'd  been  on  that  boat  for  something  over  a 
year,  and  was  beginning  to  do  quite  a  bit  of 
reading  when  I  wasn't  busy. 

"The  captain  told  me  what  books  to  read, 
and  all  that,  and  I  was  getting  along  famously 
when — other  things  began  to  happen. 

"We  had  a  consignment  of  some  pretty  fine 
silks  from  a  Cleveland  concern  to  a  Buffalo 
wholesale  house.  There  were  eight  cases.  I 
checked  them  off  as  they  took  them  on  the 
boat,  and  I  took  particular  good  care  of  them, 
too. 

"When  we  got  into  Buffalo  there  were  only 


36    "MY  FATHER  WATCHES  OVER  ME" 


seven  cases  of  the  silk.  No  one  could  account 
for  the  other  one. 

"The  purser  came  to  me,  and  said:  'How 
many  cases  were  there  when  we  started  ? ' 

"  'Eight.    I  checked  them  off.' 

"  'And  only  seven  arrived,'  he  said,  in  a 
nasty  way. 

"That  purser  never  liked  me  much  at  any 
time.  There  was  a  kick  about  that  missing 
case,  but  I  couldn't  account  for  it,  and  no  one 
else  could. 

"That  night,  I  was  sitting  in  my  room  in 
a  hotel  not  far  from  the  Buffalo  docks,  where 
I  always  stayed  when  we  were  in  that 
city,  and  was  counting  over  the  money  I  had 
with  me.  It  was  nearly  three  hundred  dol- 
lars. 

"I  didn't  have  my  door  locked,  and  suddenly 
the  purser  walked  in — Croyden  was  his  name. 
He  grinned,  as  he  saw  the  money. 

"  'Got  a  nice  wad,'  he  said. 

"  'Yes,'  I  admitted,  'I  save  my  money.' 

"He  laughed.  'Funny  about  that  case  of 
silk,'  he  said.  'Yes,'  I  replied,  thinking  no 
more  of  it,  'but  I  suppose  we'll  find  it.  It 
can't  be  stolen.' 

"'You  ought  to  know!'  he  said,  and  went 
out,  with  a  queer  looking  grin  on  his  face. 


"MY  FATHER  WATCHES  OVER  ME"  37 


"Next  morning  on  the  dock,  he  came  straight 
up  to  me. 

"'No  more  nonsense,  Steele!  What  did 
you  do  with  that  case  of  silk  V 

"  'What  do  you  mean?' 

"  'Don't  play  innocent — where  did  you  sell 
it?  I  saw  you  counting  the  money  you  got 
for  it,  last  night!' 

"  'Do  you  mean  to  say  I'm  a  thief?' 

"  'Looks  that  way!  I've  been  talking  to  the 
captain !' 

"And  then  I  saw  red  all  over.  I  didn't 
know  what  I  was  doing.  I  picked  up  a  shovel, 
and  hit  him  over  the  head.  He  went  down 
without  a  word. 

"A  crowd  gathered,  and,  before  I  knew  it, 
I  was  hustled  into  a  patrol  wagon.  There  was 
a  trial — and  I  was  sent  up  for  five  years  for 
murderous  assault.  Funny,  isn't  it,  what  a 
difference  a  day  can  make  in  a  man's  life? 

Nearly  all  my  savings  went  to  pay  my  law- 
yer, and  he  had  the  nerve  to  tell  me  I  was 
lucky  I  didn't  get  a  longer  sentence. 

"Captain  Hussy  told  me  he  was  sorry,  but 
that  I  should  have  had  patience  and  self  con- 
trol. 

"They  sent  me  to  Auburn,  and,  take  it  from 
me,  that  place  at  that  time  wasn't  any  hotel 


38    "MY  FATHER  WATCHES  OVER  ME" 


lobby,  or  public  reading  room.  I  gave  them 
as  little  trouble  as  I  could,  not  because  I 
wanted  to  be  good,  or  reform — I  couldn't  see 
where  I  needed  reforming,  but  because  I  knew 
the  better  my  record  the  sooner  I  would  be 
out.  They  let  me  go  in  about  three  years  and 
a  half. 

"Captain  Hussy  was  dead.  The  purser 
was  the  new  boss  of  the  ship — and  one  of  the 
old  hands  told  me  they  had  found  the  missing 
case  of  silk.  It  seems  that  it  had  been  mixed 
up  with  some  other  consignment — but  that 
didn't  do  me  any  good  now. 

"There  weren't  many  jobs  for  me  after  that. 
I  couldn't  understand  it  at  all. 

"One  day  I  said  to  one  of  my  old  pals: 
6 Why  is  it  everybody  is  shy  of  me?  Aren't 
they  satisfied  yet  I  am  not  a  thief?  Isn't  it 
bad  enough  to  be  sent  away  for  three  years  for 
something  I  didn't  do?' 

"My  old  pal  shook  his  head,  and  said :  'Bob, 
you  weren't  sent  away  for  stealing  silk.  You 
were  convicted  for  half  killing  a  man.' 

"And  that's  the  way  it  stood.  They  told 
me  I  was  lucky  I  wasn't  a  murderer — if  it 
hadn't  been  for  the  cleverness  of  the  ambulance 
doctor,  who  attended  Croyden,  he  would  never 
have  pulled  through. 


"MY  FATHER  WATCHES  OVER  ME"  39 


"I  began  thinking  things  over,  and  I  saw 
there  was  no  use  to  stay  around  there.  I 
drifted  south,  and  crossed  the  State  line  into 
Pennsylvania.  I  don't  know  how  it  happened, 
but  I  fell  in  with  a  couple  of  'con  men,'  who 
were  running  an  all  round  gambling  game. 

"We  made  money — it  was  a  swindle,  but  I 
didn't  care — I  wanted  to  get  back  some  of  the 
money  I  had  used  to  pay  that  lawyer  for  get- 
ting me  five  years  instead  of  ten. 

"One  day  I  told  one  of  the  men  of  my 
troubles,  and  he  laughed,  and  said,  'Don't 
worry — we  all  get  it  in  the  neck.  Take  a 
drink,  and  forget  it. 

"If  a  drink  could  make  me  forget,  I  was 
willing  to  take  it — to  take  two — as  many  as 
were  necessary.  I  took  that  drink.  It  was 
a  whiskey  straight.  I  didn't  like  the  stuff,  and 
I  took  another,  I  don't  know  why.  Pretty 
soon  the  craving  for  it  got  hold  of  me.  I  was 
drunk  half  the  time. 

"My  pals  began  to  warn  me.  They  couldn't 
use  a  drunkard  even  in  their  work,  but  I 
laughed  at  them  and  told  them  I  had  started 
to  drink  at  their  advice. 

"I  guess  I  was  hitting  it  up  pretty  hard, 
but  I  didn't  care.  I  was  trying  to  forget. 
One  day  my  pals  looked  serious. 


40    "MY  FATHER  WATCHES  OVER  ME" 

"  'Bob,'  said  the  one,  who  always  did  the 
talking,  'we're  sorry,  but  we  have  decided  to 
quit  this  partnership.  We're  going  to  pay 
you  your  share,  straight  and  honest,  and  quit. 
We  can't  stand  for  a  drunkard !' 

"It  sounded  funny  to  me.  I  had  thought 
any  one  was  good  enough  for  a  swindling 
game.  But  I  guess  drunkards  aren't  wanted 
anywhere — not  even  in  a  gang  of  hold-up  men. 

"Well,  we  quit— they  gave  me  an  honest 
share  of  the  profits.  I  thought  I  would  go 
South,  and  try  the  game  on  my  own  hook. 

"I  drifted  into  Tennessee,  and  wandered 
down  to  a  pretty  little  town,  right  back  of 
the  Blue  Ridge  Mountains.  I  met  a  young 
fellow  there,  and  we  got  to  be  chummy.  After 
a  while,  he  told  me  he  was  running  a  still, 
turning  out  the  finest  whiskey  in  the  country, 
but  he  needed  money  to  operate.  We  ended 
up  by  going  into  partnership. 

"His  name  was  Art,  and  he  had  a  sister, 
Jennie — the  prettiest  little  woman  I  thought 
I  had  ever  seen. 

"I  had  never  thought  much  of  women  be- 
fore, but  she — she  was  different  in  some  way. 
Before  I  knew  what  I  was  doing  I  was  buy- 
ing her  candy  and  ribbons,  and  the  next  thing 
I  was  asking  her  to  marry  me.    I  know  I 


"MY  FATHER  WATCHES  OVER  ME"  41 


shouldn't  have  done  it,  but  the  queer  part  of 
it  was  that  she  took  me. 

' 'She  didn't  know  anything  about  me,  that 
is  the  truth.  And  she  didn't  know  what  her 
brother  was  doing,  either;  she  thought  he  was 
in  business  in  the  city.  I  didn't  tell  her,  and 
we  were  so  happy  for  a  time  that  I  even  cut 
out  the  booze.  And  then  when  the  baby  came 
— happy?    There  isn't  any  name  for  it! 

"And  then  things  happened  again.  One 
day  the  revenue  officers  raided  our  still,  and 
Art  got  a  bullet  in  his  lungs.  I  escaped,  but 
I  didn't  have  the  heart  to  tell  Jennie  that  her 
brother  had  been  killed,  and  she  guessed  all 
kinds  of  things  when  he  didn't  come  home, 
and  had  the  life  worried  out  of  me. 

"I  took  to  drink  again,  and  it  was  the  finish. 
Jennie  stood  it  for  a  time,  then  she  packed  up 
and  left.  I  didn't  blame  her — she  couldn't 
live  with  me. 

"She  left  me  a  note,  saying  where  I  could 
find  her  when  I  made  up  my  mind  to  give  up 
rum,  but  I  laughed  at  it. 

"I  stuck  the  note  into  my  pocket,  and  forgot 
about  it.  Before  long  I  hocked  my  father's 
watch  for  booze,  the  watch  I  had  kept  through 
everything — until  then.  I  took  to  trampin', 
pickin'  up  a  bit  here  and  there.    It  wasn't  long 


42    "MY  FATHER  WATCHES  OVER  ME 


before  I  was  like  the  rest  of  the  hoboes — noth- 
ing but  a  piece  of  driftwood. 

"One  day  I  found  myself  in  a  town  in  Jer- 
sey. Half  drunk-hungry — I  always  managed 
to  get  hold  of  a  drink  some  way — I  was  feeling 
so  worn  out  and  sick  with  it  all  that  I  had 
about  made  up  my  mind  that  the  river  was 
the  only  place  for  me.  I  took  out  Jennie's 
note,  and  read  it  again — well,  I'd  never  add  to 
her  troubles  again ! 

"It  was  raining,  and  cold — and  that  didn't 
help  any.  I  wandered  around,  trying  to  de- 
cide to  take  the  plunge. 

"Down  the  street,  a  few  blocks  away  from 
where  I  stood  huddled  in  the  doorway  of  a 
barber  shop,  I  saw  a  crowd  gathering.  I  won- 
dered, in  a  kind  of  a  foolish  way,  what  the 
attraction  was,  and  finally  decided  to  investi- 
gate. 

"Going  to  the  mission,"  somebody  on  the 
edge  of  the  crowd  told  me. 

"I  looked  up  the  street,  and  saw  a  low  build- 
ing like  a  shed,  with  the  crowds  swarming  into 
it.  It  meant  shelter  from  the  rain,  and  cold, 
so  I  followed,  in  my  turn.  I  found  a  seat  near 
the  back,  and  sat  down.  They  were  singing 
some  song  that  had  a  pretty  catch  and  swing 
to  it. 


"MY  FATHER  WATCHES  OVER  ME"  43 


"Then  I  began  to  make  out  the  words' — 

For,  come  what  may,  from  day  to  day, 
My  heavenly  father  watches  o'er  me. 

"I  sat  up  straight  in  my  seat.  For  the  first 
time  in  years  I  thought  of  old  dad.  Somehow, 
I  was  glad  he  couldn't  see  me  now.  I  put  my 
hand  in  my  vest  pocket  to  touch  his  watch, 
and  then  I  remembered  as  it  all  came  over  me 
in  a  rush,  and  I  cursed  myself.  I  wanted  to 
cry  out,  but  I  didn't.  I  sat  like  a  stone  as  I 
heard  the  rest  of  the  song! — 

I  trust  in  God — I  know  he  cares  for  me. 
On  mountain  bleak,  or  on  the  stormy  sea; 
The  billows  roll,  he  keeps  my  soul, 
My  heav'nly  Father  watches  over  me. 

"To  save  my  life,  I  couldn't  keep  the  tears 
from  rolling  down  my  cheeks.  There  was  a 
queer  lump  in  my  throat  that  kept  growing. 
Before  I  had  time  to  steal  a  look  around  me 
to  see  if  any  one  was  watching,  a  man  started 
to  preach  on  the  platform. 

"He  was  talking  about  God — 'our  Heav'nly 
Father' — he  said. 

"I  had  always  had  the  idea  that  God  was 
standing  over  me  with  a  whip,  ready  to  strike 
the  moment  you  made  a  false  step,  but  this  man 


44    "MY  FATHER  WATCHES  OVER  ME" 

said  that  that  was  all  v/rong,  that  God  is  our 
friend — ready  to  help  us,  and  only  waiting  for 
us  to  ask  him. 

"My  thoughts  began  to  drift  back  to  the 
days  when  I  was  a  boy.  Yes,  that  was  true 
of  Dad,  too.  He  was  always  ready  to  help 
me.  The  queer  lump  in  my  throat  was  com- 
ing back,  and  then  they  started  the  song  again : 

I  trust  in  God — I  know  he  cares  for  me. 
On  mountain  bleak,  or  on  the  stormy  sea; 
The  billows  roll,  He  keeps  my  soul, 
My  heav'nly  Father  watches  over  me. 

"The  man  on  the  platform  was  speaking 
again,  but  I  didn't  hear  him.  I  was  stumbling 
down  the  aisle  toward  him.  My  head  was 
spinning,  and  I  was  staggering,  but  I  kept  on 
until  I  caught  his  hand,  and  then  I  dropped 
on  my  knees. 

"My  body  was  crying  out  for  something 
beyond  me,  about  me  that  I  was  trying  to  get 
hold  of.  I  know  now  it  was  the  hand  of  God, 
and  that  it  was  reaching  down  to  me.  I  tried 
to  speak,  but  I  choked.  And  then,  suddenly, 
a  great  strange  quietness  came  over  me.  The 
choking  in  my  throat  stopped.  My  eyes 
cleared.  And  somehow  I  knew  that  some- 
thing had  come  into  my  life,  that  had  never 


"MY  FATHER  WATCHES  OVER  ME"  45 


been  there  before.  I  couldn't  explain  it — but 
I  knew  it  was  there.  All  I  could  understand 
was  that  I  had  found  a  new  Father,  and  that 
he  had  been  looking  for  me  for  years. 

"And  I  knew,  too,  that  I  could  never  go 
back  to  the  old  life  again.  I  was  weak,  and 
dizzy,  and  trembling,  but  that  much  was  clear 
to  me.  It  was  as  though  some  one  had  drawn 
a  sharp  line  before  me,  and  I  had  stepped 
across  it.    I  could  never  step  back. 

"It  happened  just  like  that.  Maybe  you 
have  your  own  way  to  explain  it.  But  it's 
enough  for  me  just  to  say  that  God  did  it. 

"As  for  Jennie,  when  I  got  straightened  up, 
I  went  back  to  her,  and  told  her  the  whole 
story,  from  start  to  finish.  If  I  had  wanted 
a  proof  that  she  loved  me,  I  had  it  when  she 
put  her  arms  around  me,  and  started  to  cry. 
I  bought  her  one  of  those  new  style  plush 
coats  with  a  big  fur  collar  on  it  the  other  day, 
and  she's  as  happy  as  can  be.  Little  Jennie 
is  taking  piano  lessons,  and  the  first  song  she 
learned  to  play  was  'My  Heav'nly  Father 
Watches  Over  Me.' 

"I  wish  you  could  hear  her  mother  sing  it! 
She  always  had  a  dandy  voice,  anyway,  but 
I  never  heard  her  sing  like  that  before. 

"My  mother  is  living  with  us,  too.  When 


46    "MY  FATHER  WATCHES  OVER  ME" 


I  got  on  my  feet,  I  went  back  to  the  old  home 
town,  and  found  that  my  step-father  had  used 
every  cent  of  my  money  at  the  saloon,  and 
that  their  child  had  died. 

"And,  maybe,  you  think  she  wasn't  glad  to 
come  with  me,  too!" 

The  speaker  paused  in  his  narrative,  and  a 
faint,  boyish  grin  of  pride  spread  over  his 
face,  as  he  reached  into  his  vest  pocket,  and 
drew  out  a  watch. 

"Handsome,  isn't  it?  It  used  to  belong  to 
mv  father.  He  gave  it  to  me  when  I  was  a 
boy!" 

The  valley  may  be  dark,  the  shadows  deep, 
But  O,  the  Shepherd  guards  his  lonely  sheep; 
And  through  the  gloom,  he'll  lead  me  home, 
My  heavenly  Father  watches  over  me. 


I  Walk  With  the  Ring. 


ftOOCWCAVtR. 


L  In     sor  -  row   I  wan-dered,  my  spir  -  it   op-prest,  But  now  I  am 

2.  For  years  in    the  fet-ters   of    sin    I  was  bound, The  world  could  not 

3.  0     soul  near  de  -  spair  in    the  low-lands  of  strife,  Look  up   and  let 


hap  -  py— se  -  cure  -  ly  I  rest;  From  morn  -  ing  till  ere  -  nine  glad 
help  me— no  com -fort  I  found;  But  now  like  the  birds  and  the 
Je  -  sus  come  in  -  to  your  life;  The  joy     of    sal  •  va  -  tion  to 


P    P  t,   b   U   if  » 

car  -  ols  I  sing,  And  this  is  the  rea-son— I  walk  with  the  King, 
sunbeams  of  Spring,  I'm  free  and  re  -  joic  -  ing—  I  walk  with  the  King, 
you  He  would  bring— Come  in  -  to  the  sun  -  light  and  walk  with  the  King. 


I  walk  with  the  King,  hal -le-  lu  -  j ah!    I  walk  with  the  King, praise  Hia  name! 


N  j  h. 

h 

p  ft"      ' r  g" 

No  long-er  I  roam,  my  soul  fac-es  home,  I  wa 

Ik  and  I  tal 

k  wi 

.  -4 

th.the  King. 

/  1  u 

47 


Ill 


"i  WALK  WITH  THE  KING" 

In  sorrow  I  wandered,  my  spirit  opprest, 
But  now  I  am  happy — securely  I  rest; 
From  morning  till  evening  glad  carols  I  sing, 
And  this  is  the  reason — I  walk  with  the  King. 

Xo  one  can  ever  tell  just  how  a  song  is  going 
to  affect  another  person.  Yet  certain  songs 
are  sure  to  become  favorites  among  all  classes 
of  people.  One  of  the  most  popular  of  all 
the  solos  I  have  sung  in  our  campaigns  is  "I 
Walk  With  the  King,"  with  its  swinging,  mar- 
tial tune. 

There  is  something  about  it  which  seems  to 
stir  almost  every  heart,  and  uplifts  those  as 
wide  apart  in  social  life  as  it  is  possible  for 
men  and  women  to  be.  Some  who  have  been 
rare  exponents  of  classical  music  have  been 
attracted  by  the  sturdy,  marching  measure  of 
the  song.  Like  all  those  hymns,  coming 
straight  from  consecrated  hearts,  I  Walk 
With  the  King  means  many  different  things 
to  the  different  persons  who  hear  it. 

48 


"I  WALK  WITH  THE  KING"  49 


I  suppose  that  no  race  in  the  world  is  more 
deeply  religious  or  more  naturally  musical 
than  colored  people.  I  remember  one  night, 
while  we  were  in  Philadelphia,  that  I  started 
a  real  riot  of  enthusiasm  among  a  big  church- 
ful  of  colored  folks,  by  singing  about  The 
King. 

You  know  how  delightful  some  of  the  old 
plantation  songs  are.  As  I  spent  some  of  my 
early  years  down  South,  I  knew  a  number  of 
the  old  plantation  melodies,  and  we  all  enjoyed 
ourselves  hugely.  Then,  to  give  variety,  I 
sang  our  song,  "I  Walk  With  the  King." 

They  listened  with  the  most  intense  interest, 
showing  their  pleasure  and  happiness  by  the 
fervent  exclamations  which  are  peculiar  to 
them. 

"Yes,  mah  Lawd!" 

"Hallelujah — I's  walkin'  wid  'im!" 

"Bless  de  Lawd — Sunlight — Jesus,  sun- 
light!" 

All  this  was  in  a  sort  of  subdued  murmur, 
but  as  I  finished  the  chorus  of  the  last  verse, 
a  wonderful  looking  old  "mammy,"  whose 
growing  excitement  I  had  noticed,  even  though 
she  sat  far  back,  suddenly  sprang  to  her  feet, 
whipped  off  her  old  bonnet  and  came  charging 
down  the  aisle. 


50         "I  WALK  WITH  THE  KING' 

"Hallelujah!"  she  shouted  at  the  top  of  her 
voice,  "Glory!  I  walks  wid  im — I  walks  wid 
'im,  too,  brudder!" 

Xow  the  ejaculations  broke  out  into  a  run- 
ning fire,  and  for  a  few  minutes  we  had  a  genu- 
ine, old  fashioned  sort  of  a  time,  just  like 
the  Plantation  revivals,  when  everybody  was 
"happy." 

Xo  one  can  imagine  what  a  happiness  it  is 
to  me  to  think  that  my  voice  has  been  permitted 
to  do  work  for  the  Master.  One  of  the  ways 
in  which  this  has  been  done — and  which  I  little 
anticipated — is  in  the  reproduction  of  some  of 
our  songs  on  the  Victrola. 

Xaturally,  I  did  not  expect  to  hear  so  much 
about  that  form  of  my  work,  as  I  do  when  I 
sing  directly  for  an  audience  in  person,  but  I 
was  surprised  to  discover  that  so  many  took 
the  trouble  to  sit  down  and  write  me  about  my 
records. 

One  lady,  in  Massachusetts,  told  one  of  our 
workers  that  for  comfort  she  liked  to  listen  to 
the  record,  "Sweeter  As  the  Years  Go  By." 
And  when  things  in  her  daily  life  seemed  diffi- 
cult, she  put  on  the  record  "Brighten  the  Cor- 
ner Where  You  Are."  But  for  the  fine  cour- 
age needed  for  special  times  of  trial  she  always 
wanted  to  hear,  "I  Walk  With  the  King." 


"I  WALK  WITH  THE  KING"  51 


Besides  this  comfort  out  of  the  records,  she 
used  them  for  work  for  Christ.  You  know 
there  is  a  certain  type  of  respectable  self-satis^ 
fied  people  who  are  last  always,  to  hear  a  call 
to  conversion.  It  seemed  that  this  lady  knew 
of  a  number  of  friends  of  this  type,  and  when 
they  were  visiting  her  she  would  casually  in- 
vite them  to  hear  her  phonograph.  She  said 
that  one  man  who  had  not  been  inside  a  church 
for  years,  could  not  keep  the  tears  from  his 
eyes  as  he  listened  to  the  words  of  "I  Walk 
With  the  King"  and  soon  afterward  he  told 
her  that  he  was  singing  that  song  "all  the  time, 
now." 

A  lady  stopped  one  of  our  workers  one 
evening  to  say  that  she  wanted  to  tell  of  an 
interesting  incident  connected  with  one  of  our 
songs. 

It  seemed  that  her  home  was  in  an  adjoining 
suburb.  As  we  had  just  begun  our  campaign 
in  the  city,  only  a  few  of  the  residents  as  yet 
knew  our  songs.  And  so  she  had  been  sur- 
prised, the  evening  before,  to  hear  a  little  local 
band  which  practiced  in  a  hall  over  the  post 
office,  and  which  usually  seemed  to  confine  it- 
self to  ragtime,  practicing  "I  Walk  With  the 
King." 

Supposing  that  some  one  in  the  band  had 


52         "I  WALK  WITH  THE  KING" 


been  to  our  meetings,  and  knowing  the  band- 
master, she  went  up  into  the  hall  to  ask.  He 
shook  his  head  and  said  that  he  did  not  know 
what  the  song  was.  One  of  the  young  men 
had  heard  it  whistled,  that  afternoon,  and  he 
was  so  struck  with  its  melody  that  he  had  tried 
to  play  it  on  his  instrument  when  they  met, 
that  evening,  for  practice.  And  the  others, 
listening  to  it,  were  caught  by  its  fascination, 
and  tried  to  reproduce  it,  too. 

The  lady  then  went  on  to  say  she  had  at  once 
sung  the  words  for  them,  and  they  had  ex- 
pressed the  intention  of  attending  our  serv- 
ices in  a  body,  which  they  did,  shortly  after- 
ward. 

Several  members  of  the  band  came  down  to 
take  Mr.  Sunday's  hand  at  the  close  of  the 
service,  and  the  leader  told  the  worker,  who 
approached  him,  that  he,  for  one,  was  deter- 
mined to  give  all  of  his  musical  talents  to  God, 
from  that  time  on. 

Children  love  this  particular  song.  I  have 
so  often  noticed  that  they  sing  it  with  peculiar 
and  exceptional  vim  and  power.  Its  note  of 
hope  and  happiness,  and  its  thought  of  sun- 
light suit  the  springing  glories  of  their  minds, 
and  the  purity  of  their  young  hearts. 

Boys  of  the  ages  of  twelve  to  sixteen — those 


"I  WALK  WITH  THE  KING"  53 


most  difficult  ages ! — like  it.  I  remember  that 
one  of  our  workers  told  me  one  night  that  she 
had  been  so  interested  in  a  young  lad,  not  more 
than  fourteen,  who  came  to  take  Mr.  Sunday's 
hand. 

With  boyish  enthusiasm,  he  was  eager  to 
talk  about  this  intense  experience  of  salvation 
which  had  come  to  him.  He  said  that  nothing 
in  his  life  had  so  moved  him  as  the  song,  "I 
Walk  With  the  King."  He  had  always  gone 
to  church,  but  "somehow  or  other,  that  song 
just  made  me  think,"  as  he  expressed  it.  It 
was  hard  for  him,  with  the  inarticulateness  of 
childhood,  to  find  words  for  the  emotions  that 
so  filled  him,  but  his  eyes  shone,  his  lips  quiv- 
ered, and  all  his  slim  young  body  seemed  to 
thrill  with  the  eager  joy  of  having  found 
Christ. 

As  I  said  in  the  beginning,  you  never  can 
tell  how  a  song  is  going  to  touch  the  other 
person.  The  way  in  which  men  and  women, 
of  all  grades  and  degrees  of  life  and  educa- 
tion, found  the  song  of  the  King  applicable 
to  their  own  needs  goes  to  show  that  God  sees 
no  difference  in  us.  We  are  all  His  children, 
with  human  hearts,  waiting  for  the  miracle  of 
the  great  awakening. 

The  song,  which  stampeded  a  church  full  of 


54         "I  WALK  WITH  THE  KING' 


colored  folks,  was  also  the  favorite  of  a  dear 
friend  of  mine  in  Paterson,  New  Jersey.  I 
came  to  know  her  through  the  story  of  the 
great  cross  which  she  had  to  bear.  She  had 
suffered  a  paralytic  stroke,  and  for  a  long 
time  had  been  unable  to  leave  her  chair,  day  or 
night. 

What  made  this  pathetic  story,  as  it  was 
told  to  me,  seem  all  the  more  sad,  was  the 
splendid  life  which  the  afflicted  woman  had  led 
in  that  city.  She  had  been  a  teacher  in  the 
public  schools,  famous  for  her  scholarship,  and 
mastery  of  the  difficult  art  of  teaching,  but 
even  more  famous  for  her  ability  to  mold 
young  hearts  into  the  right  way  of  living,  and 
for  her  lasting  influence  in  her  pupils.  It  was 
said  that  long  after  her  children  left  her,  even 
when  they  grew  up  and  became  adult  members 
of  the  community,  many  of  them  continued 
their  habit  of  going  to  her  for  inspiration,  help 
and  advice. 

I  was  greatly  touched  and  said  that  I  would 
see  her  at  once. 

The  quiet  room  into  which  I  was  taken,  and 
the  patient  figure  in  the  wheel  chair,  coupled 
with  the  thought  that  she,  who  had  had  her 
finger  on  the  pulse  of  the  youth  of  that  big 
city  for  so  long,  only  now  in  her  own  closing 


"I  WALK  WITH  THE  KING"  55 


years  to  be  stricken  so  cruelly,  saddened  me 
so  that  at  first  I  could  hardly  speak. 

But  the  clearness  of  her  mind  and  the  sweet- 
ness of  her  nature  were  so  wonderful,  and  so 
apparent,  that  soon  I  could  feel  only  delight 
in  the  inspiration  of  her  patience. 

Even  though,  in  her  old  age,  she,  who  had 
done  so  much  for  others,  should  be  helpless 
to  do  for  herself,  she  still  felt  that  God's  prom- 
ises had  not  failed  her,  and  her  eyes  were  not 
full,  either,  as  she  said  it. 

She  felt,  she  said,  that  she  had  been  allowed 
to  finish  her  work.  It  was  hard,  sometimes, 
not  to  walk  in  the  sun,  as  she  had  liked  to  do, 
all  her  life,  but  the  sunlight  of  the  earth  was 
but  a  reflection  from  that  brighter  sun  which 
would  never  cease  to  shine. 

I  told  her  that  while  there  are  some  things 
which  we  find  hard  to  understand,  we  can  al- 
ways go  back  to  God's  promise,  and  know  that 
for  every  dark  day,  and  for  every  heartache, 
and  every  tear,  and  privation,  there  will  be 
His  blessing.  And  when  the  veil  is  rent  and 
we  see  His  face,  we  will  be  glad  we  have  suf- 
fered for  Him  on  this  earth. 

I  do  not  think  that  I  shall  ever  forget  the 
inspiration  which  that  hour  of  communion 
meant  to  me.    And  then  she  asked  if  I  would 


56         "I  WALK  WITH  THE  KING" 


sing  for  her,  and  I  asked  her  what  should  it 
be? 

"Please  sing,  'I  Walk  With  the  King,"  she 
said. 

I  was  surprised. 

"Where  did  you  hear  that  song?"  I  inquired. 

"I  think  you  hardly  realize  how  your  songs 
have  penetrated  all  the  strata  of  the  city,"  she 
said.  "I  have  heard  all  sorts  of  people  whis- 
tling their  melodies  as  they  pass  my  window. 
And  when  friends  come  to  call,  sometimes,  they 
hum  the  tunes,  also.  Of  all  the  songs  that 
I  have  heard  in  that  way,  the  one  I  like  best  is 
'I  Walk  With  the  King.'  Friends  have  tried 
to  sing  it  for  me,  but  I  want  to  hear  you!  I 
want  to  hear  you  sing  it,  just  as  you  do  when 
you  are  singing  for  so  many  thousands,"  and 
with  a  beautiful  smile  she  added,  "I  like  that 
part  about  coming  into  the  sunlight." 

This  is  the  verse  she  liked,  and  which  I  sang 
for  her  more  than  once: 

Oh,  soul  near  despair  in  the  lowland  of  strife 
Look  up  and  let  Jesus  come  into  your  life. 
The  joy  of  salvation  to  you  He  would  bring, 
Come  straight  into  the  sunlight  and  walk  with  the  King. 

I  walk  with  the  King,  hallelujah. 

I  walk  with  the  King,  praise  His  name. 


"I  WALK  WITH  THE  KING"  57 


No  longer  I  roam,  my  soul  faces  home, 
I  walk  and  I  talk  with  the  King. 

About  a  year  after  this  I  was  down  at  Ocean 
Grove  and  was  told  that  the  dear,  afflicted  soul 
was  there.  She  had  been  failing  so  rapidly 
that  she  did  not  recognize  any  one,  not  even 
her  dearest  friends,  who  were  so  anxiously  hov- 
ering around  her. 

So  it  was  that  I  had  no  anticipation  of  a 
word  with  her,  but  in  loving  reverence,  I 
wanted  to  bid  the  saint  Godspeed  on  her  way 
to  the  Kingdom. 

It  was  a  very  silent,  hushed  room  into  which 
I  went.  I  sat  down  beside  her  and  took  her 
hand  in  mine,  and  although  I  had  no  idea  that 
one  word  of  what  I  said  would  reach  her,  I 
tried  to  talk  a  little,  saying  what  I  would  have 
liked  to  have  said  could  she  hear  me. 

And  then  a  wonderful  thing  happened. 
Her  set  face,  staring  ahead  as  if  she  looked 
away  at  something  which  we  could  not  see, 
suddenly  seemed  to  light  up.  And,  scarcely 
moving  her  lips,  she  murmured: — 

"Into  the  sunlight.    Into  the  sunlight." 

A  strange  thing,  was  it  not,  that  my  voice, 
which  she  had  heard  only  once,  should  stir  into 
life  the  vibrations  of  her  memory,  and  with  it, 


58 


"I  WALK  WITH  THE  KING' 


that  part  of  the  song  which  she  had  so  loved? 

A  few  days  later  she  passed  out  into  that 
great,  never-f ailing  sunlight,  for  which  she  had 
yearned  so  long  and  so  patiently. 


c  b  k  J  6s  N  i-  m 

N^long-er  I  roam,  my  soul  f 

ic-es  home,  I  wa 

ik  and  I  ta 

Ik 

th.t 
- 

he  King. 

*  p  E 

They  said  that  her  face  was  extraordinarily 
beautiful  when  life  had  departed  from  it.  I 
am  sure  that  in  those  hours  when  she  lay  with 
her  senses  closed  to  the  world,  she  had  a  vision 
of  what  God  had  in  store  for  her — of  the  love 
and  joy  toward  which  her  eager  soul  strained. 
Probably  the  last  earthly  vibration  which  her 
soul  caught  was  that  which  my  voice  brought 
to  her — and  which  awoke  in  her  the  echo  of  her 
beloved  song. 

O  soul  near  despair  in  the  lowlands  of  strife, 
Look  up  and  let  Jesus  come  into  your  life; 
The  joy  of  salvation  to  you  he  would  bring, 
Come  into  the  sunlight  and  walk  with  the  King. 


De  Brewer's  Bi$  Mosses. 


1.  Oh,  da  Brew-er's  big    boss  -  ea,     eon  -  in'  down  da  road, 

2.  Ob,  de    lick  -  er  men's  act  -  In'      Ska  day  own  dia  placa, 

3.  Oh,  I'll  har-nesa  dem  boas  -  es      to    da  tamp-'ranca  cart. 


Tot  -  in'  ail  a -round  ole  La-ci-fer's  load;  Day  step  ao  sift, 
Liv  •  in'  on  de  sweat  ob  da  po'  man's  face,  Day's  fat  and  saa- 
Hit  em'  wid    a  gad     to       gib  'em  a    start,  I'd  teach  'am  how 


an'  dey  step  so  free,  But  dem  big  hoss-ea  can't  run  o  -  ver  mat 
sy  as  dey  can  be,  But  dem  big  hoas-es  can't  run  o  -  ver  mat 
for  to    haw  and  gee,  For  dem  big  hoas-ee  can't  run  o  -  ver  ma! 


Copyright.  1887.  by  FtHmor*  Bros.  Ustd  by  permiaaiom.  Ontd  by  Tfc*  Jtadtkmrm  Cm. 


50 


Chcthcs. 


De  Brewer's  Big  Mosses. 


Oh;  no!  boys,  oh,  no!  De  turnpike's  free  wher-eb-ber  I  go]  Vse  a  tem-per-ance 


-7-1 — vi — v- 

in-gine,don't  you  see,  And  de  Brew-er's  big  boss-es  can't  run  0  -  ver  me! 


(Same  as  above)  for  male  voices. 
Chobus. 


Oh,  no!  boys,oh,   no!  Bo  turnpike's  free  wher-eb-ber  I  go;  I'se  a  temperance 


Ob,  no!  boys,no,no,no 


In-gine,  don't  yon  see,  And  de  Brew-er's  big  hoss-es  can't  ran  0  •  ver  me! 

N  1 


IV 


DE  BREWER'S  BIG  HOSSES 

Oh,  de  Brewer's  big  hosses,  comin'  down  de  road, 
Totin'  all  around  ole  Lucifer's  load; 
Dey  step  so  high  an'  dey  step  so  free, 
But  dem  big  hosses  can't  run  over  me! 

"De  Brewer's  Big  Hosses"  is  one  of  the 
simplest  and  homeliest  of  the  songs  in  our  pro- 
gram— and  yet  it  has  always  been  one  of  the 
most  popular  and  most  appealing. 

I  have  often  speculated  as  to  the  reason,  and 
I  have  come  to  the  conclusion  that  one  of  the 
principal  causes  for  its  success  is  its  challenge 
to  the  democratic  spirit  of  the  American  peo- 
ple. 

We  are  inherently  a  nation  of  fighters. 
There  is  no  slogan  that  will  rally  a  crowd  of 
real  Americans  as  swiftly  as  that  of  right 
against  might. 

Our  fight  against  the  saloon  is  a  response  to 
such  a  slogan — the  right  of  the  weak,  sorely 
tempted  victim,  struggling  in  the  grip  of  al- 
cohol, against  the  might  of  the  organized 
liquor  traffic. 

61 


DE  BREWER'S  BIG  HOSSES 


The  great  temperance  campaigns  funda- 
mentally are  an  appeal  to  American  Democ- 
racy, an  appeal  to  arms  against  the  spread  of 
a  power  that  is  more  dangerous  to  human  lib- 
erty than  any  autocracy. 

But  this  is  not  a  temperance  lecture.  It  is 
the  story  of  a  song — a  song,  which  some  peo- 
ple say  has  done  more  to  check  the  evil  of  the 
saloons  in  this  country  than  many  of  the  most 
impassioned  addresses  of  our  temperance  ora- 
tors. 

A  variety  of  interesting  and  dramatic  stories 
are  linked  in  my  mind  with  the  singing  of  "De 
Brewer's  Big  Hosses." 

Perhaps  the  most  unusual  series  of  events, 
associated  with  the  song,  however,  are  those 
incidents  connected  with,  and  following  the 
Billy  Sunday  campaign  in  Scranton,  Penn- 
sylvania. 

Almost  from  the  opening  meeting,  the  song 
seemed  to  strike  a  responsive  chord  in  the  audi- 
ence. It  began  to  be  called  for  again  and 
again. 

When  I  stepped  to  the  edge  of  the  platform, 
and  called  the  list  of  special  delegations,  fol- 
lowing our  usual  custom,  and  asked  for  their 
favorite  song  selection,  I  could  be  sure  that 
some  voice  would  call  out  in  answer,  "De 


DE  BREWER'S  BIG  HOSSES 


63 


Brewer's  Big  Hosses,"  and  that  the  request 
would  always  be  followed  by  applause. 

Scranton  is  one  of  the  great  coal-mining 
centers  of  the  country,  and  it  is  essentially  an 
industrial  town. 

There  is  no  class  of  people  in  all  of  our  ex- 
perience among  whom  it  is  more  inspiring  to 
work  than  the  American  working  men. 

We  are  always  sure  of  courteous,  thought- 
ful attention,  and  when  the  response  to  the 
message  comes  we  know  that  it  is  always  sin- 
cere and  honest,  and  straight  from  the  hearts 
of  those  who  give  it. 

Therefore,  when  we  began  to  feel  instinct- 
ively that  our  campaign  was  gaining  headway 
and  public  favor  in  Scranton,  we  were  more 
than  usually  gratified. 

We  knew  that  if  we  could  get  results  those 
results  would  be  permanent.  And  we  were 
right. 

If  we  could  help  win  the  Scranton  miners 
and  workingmen  for  Christ,  we  knew  that  our 
work  would  go  on  multiplying,  long  after  our 
campaign  had  passed  into  history. 

Therefore,  when  I  felt  the  response  to  the 
song,  "De  Brewer's  Big  Hosses,"  and  began 
to  hear  it  sung  and  whistled  on  all  sides,  I  knew 
that  we  were  beginning  to  get  down  to  the 


64 


DE  BREWER'S  BIG  HOSSES 


great,  throbbing  heart  of  the  factories  and  the 
mines. 

And  no  truer,  or  more  genuine  heart  ever 
beat  for  the  cause  of  God  than  that  of  the 
man  in  overalls — when  his  Christ  is  really 
brought  home  to  him. 

As  the  campaign  progressed  the  popularity 
of  the  song  steadily  increased. 

It  was  being  hummed  and  whistled  in  the 
mines  and  factories.  It  was  being  sung  in  the 
offices  and  stores.  The  words  were  printed  in 
the  newspapers,  and  even  in  advertising  pla- 
cards and  announcements. 

It  was  the  big  song  of  the  moment  as  far 
as  Scranton  was  concerned. 

I  doubt  if  a  stranger  could  have  remained  in 
the  city  twenty-four  hours  without  hearing  it 
somewhere,  even  if  he  never  went  near  the 
Billy  Sunday  Tabernacle. 

The  song  had  captured  the  city,  and  it  kept 
on  singing  its  message  and  its  inspiration  closer 
and  closer  into  the  heart  of  the  community. 

Various  stories  were  brought  to  us  of  the 
results  that  had  followed  its  singing. 

One  afternoon  a  large  brewery  wagon,  filled 
to  its  capacity,  was  caught  in  the  mud  of  a 
slushy  street. 

The  driver  whipped  and  cursed  his  team  in 


DE  BREWER'S  BIG  HOSSES 


65 


vain.  The  horses  tugged  and  pulled  and 
strained,  but  the  heavy  wheels  were  so  firmly 
imbedded  in  the  slush  that  it  seemed  almost  im- 
possible to  move  them. 

While  the  driver  was  exhausting  his  vocabu- 
lary of  profanity,  a  group  of  children,  home- 
ward bound  from  school,  paused  on  the  side- 
walk to  watch  the  spectacle. 

In  their  eyes  only  the  amusing  side  of  the 
situation  was  apparent. 

Suddenly  one  of  the  more  roguish  of  the 
party  struck  up  the  words  of  the  chorus : — 


Cbobcs. 


Oh;  do!  boys,  ch,  no!  De  turnpike's  free  wher-ebber  I  go;  Pae  a  tem-per-ancs 


in-gine,don't  you  tee,  And  de  Brew-er'6  big  hosa-es  can't  run  o  -Ter  me! 


66         DE  BREWER'S  BIG  HOSSES 


The  rest  of  the  children,  catching  the  spirit 
of  the  song,  and  the  dilemma  of  the  brewers' 
driver,  joined  in  with  a  will. 

The  perspiring  man  at  the  horses'  heads 
turned  with  an  oath: 

"Stop  that!"  he  snarled,  brandishing  his 
fists. 

But  his  anger  only  incited  the  children  to 
redoubled  efforts,  and  again  they  sang  the 
chorus. 

Leaving  his  horses  tugging  at  the  mud-en- 
crusted wheels,  the  driver  made  a  dash  toward 
the  sidewalk,  and  caught  two  of  the  youngsters 
by  their  collars. 

"I'll  teach  you  to  sing  that  song  when  I'm 
around!"  he  muttered,  and  in  spite  of  their 
protests,  he  led  them  off  to  the  local  probation 
officer,  to  whom  he  told  his  angry  narrative. 

The  court  officer  heard  him  with  a  barely 
concealed  smile,  and  when  he  had  finished,  said, 
"Surely,  you  can  hardly  expect  me  to  punish 
children  for  singing  at  you! 

"It  seems  to  me  that  the  fault  is  with  you. 
If  you  would  get  out  of  the  brewery  business, 
such  a  song  wouldn't  bother  you  in  the  least. 
I  would  advise  you  to  go  after  the  business — 
not  the  children!" 

And  the  alleged  culprits  were  dismissed, 


DE  BREWER'S  BIG  HOSSES 


67 


while  the  driver  was  left  to  get  his  load  out 
of  the  mud  as  best  he  could. 

The  incident  made  something  of  a  public 
topic  in  the  city,  and  the  song  became  more 
popular  than  ever. 

"De  Brewer's  Big  Hosses  Can't  Run  Over 
Me!"  became  almost  a  public  by-word. 

Shortly  afterward  another  delivery  wagon 
of  the  breweries  was  stuck  fast  in  a  street  car 
track. 

The  motorman  jangled  his  bell  in  vain,  and 
before  he  could  stop  his  car,  hit  the  wagon,  and 
knocked  it  from  the  track. 

While  the  sweating  driver  flogged  his  horses, 
the  motorman  suddenly  lifted  his  voice  in  the 
familiar  chorus: 

Oh,  no,  boys,  oh,  no ! 

De  turnpike's  free  where-ebber  I  go! 

I'se  a  temperance  ingine,  don't  you  see! 

And  de  brewers'  big  hosses  can't  run  over  me ! 

The  words  were  taken  up  by  the  passengers, 
and  sung  with  gusto  while  the  driver  of  the 
brewers  wagon,  with  his  face,  brick-red,  from 
the  embarrassment  of  the  situation,  shook  his 
fist  in  vain. 

As  the  street  car  jingled  past  him,  the 
words  of  the  chorus  floated  back  to  him  defi- 


68 


DE  BREWER'S  BIG  HOSSES 


antly,  and  he  realized  that  he  had  made  him- 
self a  spectacle  of  public  derision. 

At  last  the  temper  of  the  thriving,  bustling 
city  was  being  awakened  against  the  evil  in 
its  midst — the  evil  of  the  saloon  that  had  flour- 
ished too  long,  unchecked. 

As  our  work  neared  the  closing  days  of  the 
campaign,  a  monster  civic  parade  was  arranged 
in  Mr.  Sunday's  honor. 

We  had  been  told  that  it  would  be  made  a 
public  event,  and,  knowing  the  way  Scranton 
did  things,  we  expected  something  out  of  the 
ordinary,  but  none  of  us  were  prepared  for 
the  spectacle  that  met  our  eyes  when  the  day 
for  the  much-advertised  parade  finally  arrived. 

Twenty  thousand  men,  we  were  told,  were 
in  line,  and  as  we  gazed  at  the  turn-out,  we 
could  quite  believe  the  statement. 

All  walks  of  life,  and  all  of  the  Scranton 
industries  were  represented. 

Mules,  that  hadn't  been  brought  into  the 
daylight  for  years,  had  been  hoisted  from  the 
line  shafts. 

Factories  were  closed  down  for  the  occasion, 
and  their  employees  marshaled  solidly  in  im- 
posing divisions. 

Stores  advertised  that  business  would  be 
suspended,  while  their  employees  marched. 


DE  BREWER'S  BIG  HOSSES  69 


The  Scranton  lodges  furnished  a  remark- 
able quota  of  their  membership  to  swell  the 
ranks  of  the  parade. 

City  officials,  the  fire  and  police  departments 
turned  out. 

It  was  a  tribute  upon  which  no  man  could 
gaze  without  tears  in  his  eyes  and  a  swelling 
in  his  heart,  and  Mr.  Sunday  regarded  it 
as  one  of  the  supreme  events  of  his  life,  and 
we  all  shared  his  gratification  and  apprecia- 
tion. 

Suddenly,  as  the  marchers,  with  heads  erect 
and  banners  flying,  wended  their  way  through 
the  principal  business  streets,  there  was  a  com- 
motion from  the  lines  of  spectators. 

A  heavy  brewery  wagon  rumbled  into  their 
midst,  through  the  line  of  the  parade,  while 
the  driver  whipped  up  his  team,  with  appar- 
ently no  thought  of  the  disturbance  he  was 
creating. 

A  few  minutes  later  there  was  another  burst 
of  shouts,  and  the  same  wagon  appeared  in 
the  ranks  of  the  parade,  from  the  opposite  side 
of  the  street. 

Sullenly,  and  with  muttered  protests,  the 
marchers  broke  ranks  to  allow  it  to  pass. 

When  a  few  blocks  farther  on,  the  driver 
showed  up  again,  his  purpose  was  plain. 


70         DE  BREWER'S  BIG  HOSSES 


It  was  obvious  that  he  was  obeying  orders  to 
disrupt  the  line  of  march. 

The  men  of  the  Scranton  Bolt  and  Xut 
Works,  with  white  faces  of  silent  wrath,  let 
him  reach  the  middle  of  the  street,  and  then, 
as  though  by  a  mighty,  concerted  effort,  they 
sprang  at  the  heads  of  his  horses,  and  before 
he  realized  what  was  taking  place,  or  that  he 
had  gone  too  far,  they  had  stripped  the  harness 
from  the  animals,  and  turned  the  heavy  w^agon 
over  on  its  side. 

As  they  did  so,  some  one  started  the  chorus 
of  "De  Brewer's  Big  Hosses,"  and  it  was  taken 
up  with  a  volume  that  made  itself  heard  for 
blocks. 

The  driver  scrambled  to  the  pavement,  but 
he  did  not  dare  to  utter  a  protest  as  he  saw  the 
temper  of  the  crowd. 

Still  singing,  the  parade  parted  sufficiently 
to  allow  the  marchers  to  pass  by  the  over- 
turned wagon  in  the  street,  and  the  fuming 
driver  was  left  behind  to  correct  the  damage 
as  he  could,  and  realizing  in  his  heart  the  sting- 
ing public  rebuke  that  had  been  administered 
to  him. 

Afterward  it  developed  that  he  had  been 
employed  to  do  his  utmost  to  bring  confusion 
into  the  ranks  of  the  marchers,  with  the  pur- 


DE  BREWER'S  BIG  HOSSES 


71 


pose  of  detracting  from  the  effect  and  enthusi- 
asm of  the  occasion. 

But  the  effort  only  served  to  deepen  the  en- 
thusiasm, and  reacted,  in  approved  boomerang 
fashion,  on  the  heads  of  those  who  conceived 
it. 

Not  only  was  the  parade  one  of  the  great 
public  successes  of  any  event  in  Scranton  his- 
tory for  years,  but  the  petty  plot  of  the  brew- 
eries served  to  give  more  support  and  approval 
than  ever  to  Mr.  Sunday's  efforts,  and  the 
campaign  closed  in  a  burst  of  praise  that  made 
the  eyes  of  every  worker  dim  with  tears,  as 
we  finally  bid  good-by  and  God-speed  to  the 
city,  that  had  rallied  so  nobly  to  our  labors  in 
its  behalf. 

The  climax  in  the  history  of  this  song,  so 
far  as  Scranton  is  concerned,  came  long  after 
the  campaign  was  closed,  and  its  incidents  had 
become  a  part  of  the  history  of  the  city. 

It  is  another  of  the  many  illustrations  that 
could  be  supplied  from  every  section  of  the 
country  that  Mr.  Sunday's  efforts  are  not 
transitory  in  their  effects,  but  produce  results 
that  are  too  deep-reaching  and  genuine  not  to 
be  lasting. 

It  happened  that  an  Italian  boy  was  run 
over  by  one  of  the  Scranton  brewery  drivers, 


72         DE  BREWER'S  BIG  HOSSES 


who  did  their  best  not  to  notice  the  public  dis- 
dain and  disapproval  toward  them. 

The  parents  of  the  stricken  child  appealed 
to  one  of  the  leading  lawyers  of  the  city  to 
take  their  case,  and  to  see  if  damages  could 
not  be  collected  in  court  against  the  brewery, 
whose  employee  was  so  obviously  at  fault. 

The  attorney  was  one  of  those  sincere,  ear- 
nest Christians,  who  cannot  hear  a  call  for  help 
without  responding. 

He  took  the  suit  against  the  brewery,  and 
marshaled  his  best  legal  thought  and  judg- 
ment in  the  matter. 

Finally  the  case  came  to  trial,  but  in  his 
heart  he  felt  that  it  was  a  losing  issue,  unless 
something  unforeseen  came  to  his  aid. 

The  power  of  the  breweries  had  permeated 
almost  every  part  of  the  city,  and  he  sensed, 
rather  than  knew,  when  he  faced  the  jury, 
that  the  lawyer  for  the  defense  had  made  cer- 
tain beforehand  of  the  verdict. 

But  he  wasn't  the  kind  of  a  man  to  give  up 
without  the  most  gallant  struggle. 

He  believed  in  going  down  with  his  ship. 

And  so  he  presented  his  evidence  and  his 
witnesses  and  made  his  most  impassioned  pleas, 
fought  his  opponents  at  every  possible  legal 
opening  which  they  left  him. 


DE  BREWER'S  BIG  HOSSES 


73 


He  was  doing  his  best,  but  that  sixth  sense 
of  all  true  lawyers  told  him  that  he  was  making 
no  headway,  that  he  was  laboring  in  vain. 

When  the  case  was  adjourned  for  lunch,  he 
approached  the  counsel  for  the  breweries  with 
the  suggestion  of  a  compromise. 

"Why  not  settle  the  case  now  for  a  nominal 
sum?"  he  asked.  "Suppose  I  could  persuade 
my  client  to  accept  four  hundred  dollars? 
Would  you  be  willing  to  concede  to  that 
offer?" 

The  lawyer  for  the  breweries  gave  him  a 
look  of  contempt. 

"Four  hundred  dollars!"  he  snorted.  "Not 
a  dollar!  Why  should  we  compromise  when 
we  have  the  case  won  as  it  stands?" 

And  he  stalked  out  to  luncheon,  leaving  the 
opposing  counsel  staring  at  his  notes,  and  won- 
dering if  the  other's  statement  was,  indeed, 
correct. 

The  afternoon  session  was  called,  and  the 
moment  at  last  arrived  for  the  summing  up  of 
the  prosecution. 

The  attorney  for  the  parents  of  the  Italian 
child  took  his  position,  and  faced  the  jury,  for 
his  last  effort,  realizing,  as  he  confronted  the 
rows  of  bored-looking  men  that  they  had  prob- 
ably already  made  up  their  minds  against  him. 


74         DE  BREWER'S  BIG  HOSSES 


Nevertheless,  he  allowed  none  of  his  inward 
doubt  and  trepidation  to  show  in  his  words, 
or  manner,  as  he  launched  into  one  of  the  most 
vivid  speeches  he  had  ever  delivered  on  behalf 
of  a  client. 

But  it  wasn't  producing  results. 

He  knew  that,  in  spite  of  his  efforts  to  throw 
his  whole  soul  into  the  words  that  poured  from 
his  hps. 

It  was  at  this  point  that  an  inspiration  seized 
him,  as  brilliant  as  a  flash  of  lightning  from 
a  clear  summer  sky. 

He  stopped  short  in  his  eloquent  sentences, 
glanced  down  as  though  about  to  resume  his 
chair,  and  then,  suddenly,  began  to  hum  the 
tune  of  "De  Brewer's  Big  Hosses  Can't  Run 
Over  Me." 

The  jurymen  heard  the  tune,  and  sat  sud- 
denly erect. 

Without  further  preamble,  the  lawyer  raised 
his  voice  in  the  words  of  the  song. 

He  knew  that  it  was  known  to  every  section 
of  the  city,  that  it  had  left  its  imprint  in  hun- 
dreds of  homes,  and  with  the  vision  of  the 
sudden  inspiration  that  had  come  to  him,  he 
faced  the  jury,  and  sang  the  words  through 
to  the  end. 


DE  BREWER'S  BIG  HOSSES  75 


Almost  insensibly  the  atmosphere  of  the 
court  room  changed. 

Almost  insensibly  the  bored  look  faded  from 
the  faces  of  the  jurors. 

Almost  insensibly  the  nodding  spectators 
straightened  in  their  chairs. 

The  lawyer  for  the  breweries,  who  was  al- 
ready beginning  to  put  his  papers  and  docu- 
ments away,  began  to  glare  across  at  his  oppo- 
nent, and  to  try  to  catch  the  eye  of  the  pre- 
siding judge,  but  that  gentleman  had  also  been 
caught  by  the  spirit  and  the  lilt  of  the  music, 
and,  to  his  horror  and  amazement,  the  highly 
paid  counsel  for  the  brewery  interests  saw  that 
the  judge  was  actually  keeping  time  with  his 
gavel  on  the  judicial  bench. 

The  lawyer  for  the  plaintiffs  ended  his  song, 
and  sat  down  with  a  smile. 

He  knew  enough  to  stop  at  the  physcho- 
logical  moment. 

The  judge  dismissed  the  jury,  and  its  mem- 
bers filed  out  of  the  court  room,  several  of 
them  humming  the  words  of  the  song  under 
their  breaths  as  they  retired. 

A  half  an  hour  later  the  foreman  reported 
that  their  verdict  was  ready. 

"We  award  sixteen  hundred  dollars  for  the 
plaintiff!"  he  announced,  and  a  cheer,  which 


76         DE  BREWER'S  BIG  HOSSES 


could  not  be  repressed,  broke  over  the  court 
room. 

The  counsel  for  the  liquor  interests  thrust 
his  hat  on  his  head,  and  shoved  his  papers 
into  his  brief  case.    He  had  nothing  to  say. 

He  had  been  beaten  by  a  song. 

The  case,  for  which  he  had  refused  a  few 
hours  before  to  compromise  for  a  paltry  sum 
had  gone  against  him,  in  spite  of  his  convic- 
tion that  he  was  thoroughly  assured  of  the 
result. 

"De  Brewer's  Big  Hosses"  had  worsted  the 
liquor  interests  once  more. 

Few  of  us  appreciate  the  psychology  of 
music.  But  there  is  more  than  psychology  in 
the  great  gospel  hymns. 

There  is  the  appeal  of  the  soul,  struggling 
to  find  the  light  which  it  has  been  denied, 
struggling  to  find  the  haven  which  a  turbulent 
life  has  kept  farther  and  farther  in  the  distance. 

God  touches  the  hearts  of  men  in  a  variety 
of  ways.  But  there  is  no  method  so  direct  or 
so  certain  as  that  of  music. 

We  say  that  music  has  the  power  to  soothe 
the  savage  beasts.  It  also  has  the  power  to 
woo  and  win  the  forces  of  sin,  which  are  far 
more  devouring  in  their  effects  than  the  beasts 
of  the  jungle. 


DE  BREWER'S  BIG  HOSSES  77 


It  is  not  a  matter  of  sentiment.  It  is  a  mat- 
ter of  salvation. 

It  is  food  for  the  hungry  heart,  crying  out 
for  that  which  the  world  cannot  supply,  which 
can  only  be  received  from  God. 

It  is  unfair  to  say  that  music  awakens  only 
the  sentiment  of  men.  It  calls  into  being  the 
best  and  the  noblest  traits  with  them. 

It  is  music  that  leads  the  soldiers  on  the 
battlefield  to  the  last  charge  against  desperate 
odds.  It  is  music  which  leads  the  soldiers  of 
peace,  on  the  battlefields  of  God,  to  the  charge 
on  the  ramparts  of  the  devil,  where  everything 
seems  against  them,  and  where  victory  seems 
impossible. 

I  have  in  mind,  in  closing  this  bird's  eye 
glimpse  of  the  results  that  have  crowned  the 
singing  of  "De  Brewer's  Big  Hosses,"  a  story 
that  has  been  told  to  me  of  the  victory  which 
one  man,  alone,  and  single-handed,  has  ob- 
tained, through  the  help  of  God,  over  the 
demon,  Alcohol,  when  even  his  wife  had  given 
him  up  for  lost,  and  considered  him  as  worse 
than  dead  to  her. 

He  was  a  newspaper  reporter  in  a  Pennsyl- 
vania city,  and,  in  his  sober  moments,  acknowl- 
edged to  be  one  of  the  brightest  men  in  the 
community. 


78         DE  BREWER'S  BIG  HOSSES 


His  power  of  description,  and  his  keen,  in- 
cisive analysis  of  current  events  always  ob- 
tained him  a  position  on  one  of  the  local 
papers  even  when  it  was  known  that  he  had 
been  discharged  from  a  competitor  because  of 
drunkenness. 

When  the  craze  for  drink  seized  him,  he  for- 
got everything  else. 

He  was  its  blinded  slave,  content  only  to 
satisfy  the  sudden  thirst  that  had  come  upon 
him,  and  utterly  reckless  of  how  it  was  ac- 
complished. 

Friends  sent  him  to  various  sanitariums  and 
institutions  that  advertised  a  "sure  cure"  for 
the  drink  habit,  but  all  to  no  purpose. 

There  is  only  one  "sure  cure"  for  the  drink 
habit — the  grace  of  God. 

Drugs  may  dull  the  senses,  and  blunt  the  ap- 
petite for  the  time  being,  but  only  the  saving 
help  of  God  can  make  the  victim  immune  from 
the  temptation  when  it  comes  upon  him. 

The  reporter  tried  conscientiously  to  make 
good. 

He  truly  loved  his  wife.  He  was  truly 
grateful  to  his  friends.  He  truly  realized  the 
opportunities  for  his  God-given  talent  of  writ- 
ing, which  he  was  deliberately  throwing  away. 

And  often  for  weeks  at  a  time  he  succeeded 


DE  BREWER'S  BIG  HOSSES  79 


in  conquering  the  appetite  that  was  always 
gnawing  at  his  heart. 

But,  always,  a  more  than  usual  temptation 
would  sweep  down  upon  him,  before  which  he 
seemed  as  powerless  as  a  chip  in  Niagara. 

Before  the  smell  of  liquor  he  was  as  help- 
less as  a  slave  in  chains. 

Finally,  on  one  more  than  usually  pro- 
tracted ''spree,"  during  which  he  was  absent 
from  home  and  friends  for  ten  days,  his  child 
was  taken  with  a  violent  attack  of  diphtheria, 
and  died  in  the  night. 

When  he  was  sobered  enough  to  return 
home,  it  was  to  receive  the  first  news  of  the 
tragedy,  that  had  come  in  his  absence. 

His  wife  met  him  at  the  door  with  a  white, 
set  face.    She  was  through. 

"I  have  tried  for  ten  years,"  she  said,  in  a 
hard,  dull  voice.  "It  is  useless  for  me  to  try 
longer.  I  have  given  you  my  life,  my  youth, 
my  happiness.  They  have  meant  nothing  to 
you.  It  is  not  fair  to  ask  me  to  stay  with  you 
longer." 

And  she  left  him  to  the  misery  of  his  little, 
darkened  home. 

He  staggered  back  to  the  newspaper  office 
and  the  publisher  met  him  with  a  stern  face. 

"You  are  done  with  us,"  he  said.  "You 


80         DE  BREWER'S  BIG  HOSSES 


are  a  brilliant  man,  and  you  have  given  us  ex- 
cellent service  in  your  sober  days. 

"But  we  can't  afford  to  have  a  man  on  our 
pay  roll  that  may  fail  us  at  a  critical  moment. 
I'm  sorry,  but  there  is  no  use  to  argue  the 
question." 

And  the  poor  fellow  received  the  balance 
due  him  at  the  cashier's  window,  and  lurched 
out  into  the  street,  feeling  that  the  world  had 
suddenly  come  to  an  end  for  him. 

But  even  the  awful  catastrophe  that  had 
fallen  on  him,  was  not  sufficient  to  make  him 
brace  up,  and  fight  against  the  tide  that  was 
wrecking  his  life. 

He  spent  the  few  bills  in  his  pockets  at  the 
first  saloon,  and  for  days  lay  in  a  semi-stupor 
in  a  shack  on  the  edge  of  town. 

For  weeks  he  hung  about  the  railroad  yards, 
where  the  men  he  had  known  and  befriended  as 
a  reporter,  gave  him  enough  to  keep  him  from 
actual  starvation. 

But  they  regarded  him  as  a  hopeless  derelict, 
whose  only  salvation  would  be  in  death. 

They  gave  him  money  as  they  would  give  to 
the  victim  of  an  incurable  disease. 

He  was  a  likable  fellow,  who  made  friends 
easily,  and  his  ability  was  undoubted. 

But  he  was  like  a  man  marked  by  the  lep- 


DE  BREWER'S  BIG  HOSSES  81 


rosy.  He  was  the  horrible  example  of  the 
community,  whom  men  could  only  pity. 

It  was  about  this  time  that  Mr.  Sunday 
opened  a  campaign  there. 

The  publisher  of  the  newspaper,  where  the 
reporter  had  been  employed,  was  an  unusual 
type  of  Christian,  a  man  who  tried  to  conduct 
his  paper  as  he  felt  Jesus  would  do,  were  He 
alive,  and  at  the  editorial  desk. 

This  may  seem  incredible,  but  it's  a  fact. 
He  kept  himself  poor  because  of  his  personal 
donations  to  charity  and  deserving  victims  of 
misfortune. 

And  he  was  always  losing  splendid  business 
contracts  because  of  his  insistence  on  cham- 
pioning the  cause  of  right,  as  he  saw  it. 

An  opened  Bible  on  his  editorial  desk  could 
be  seen  whenever  a  visitor  happened  to  enter  his 
office  unexpectedly,  and  it  was  plain  that  the 
Bible  was  not  there  for  show. 

The  publisher  made  diligent  use  of  it.  Of 
course,  it  was  impossible  for  him  always  to 
measure  up  to  all  of  his  ideals.  There  are 
limits  to  human  efforts  and  a  wholesale  re- 
form of  society  might  mean  a  wreckage  and 
ruin. 

But  he  tried  as  sincerely  and  conscientiously 
as  was  in  his  limited  power  to  conduct  his 


82         DE  BREWER'S  BIG  HOSSES 


newspaper  and  his  own  life  as  he  felt  the  Great 
Master  would  have  him  do,  were  He  always  by 
his  side. 

When  the  Billy  Sunday  campaign  was  an- 
nounced, the  publisher  had  a  sudden  inspira- 
tion, and  sent  for  the  discharged  reporter. 

The  man  was  ushered  into  his  private  office, 
a  pitiable  object,  with  ragged  clothes,  and  a 
face  that  had  not  seen  a  razor  for  days. 

Without  a  word,  the  publisher  gave  him  a 
bill,  and  told  him  to  get  himself  cleaned  up,  and 
then  report  to  him  for  instructions. 

The  newspaper  man  obeyed  instructions, 
and,  late  in  the  afternoon  came  back,  in  a  new 
suit,  with  a  shave,  and  a  hair  cut,  but  wTith  his 
hands  trembling,  for  he  had  not  had  a  drink 
for  hours. 

"I  want  you  to  report  the  Sunday  meetings 
for  this  paper,"  said  the  publisher.  "We  are 
going  to  give  them  all  the  space  they  want. 
While  Mr.  Sunday  is  here,  this  newspaper  be- 
longs to  him.    I  want  you  to  do  your  best." 

The  reporter  said  nothing,  but  after  a 
moment  staggered  from  the  office. 

The  publisher  turned  back  to  his  work.  He 
was  trying  a  desperate  experiment  from  his 
viewpoint.  It  was  his  hope  that  the  man 
might  be  touched  by  the  grace  of  God  at  the 


DE  BREWER'S  BIG  HOSSES  83 


meetings,  and  so  influenced  as  to  seize  the  only 
life  line  that  could  be  flung  to  him  now. 

For  a  week  there  was  no  apparent  result. 

The  reporter  kept  sober,  and  contributed 
some  of  the  most  brilliant  accounts  of  our 
meetings  that  have  ever  been  written. 

Then  one  night  we  missed  him  from  the 
newspaper  table. 

His  place  was  taken  by  another  man,  for  the 
publisher,  knowing  that  the  man  might  go 
down  under  his  temptation  at  any  moment,  had 
provided  a  substitute  for  such  an  emergency. 

On  the  third  night  the  reporter  reappeared, 
showing  plainly  by  his  pale  face  and  shaking 
hands  the  reason  for  his  absence. 

It  was  on  this  evening  that  we  sang  for  the 
first  time  the  song,  "De  Brewer's  Big  Hosses 
Can't  Run  Over  Me." 

It  was  received  with  more  than  usual  ap- 
plause, and  in  the  report  of  the  service  the  re- 
porter seized  upon  the  song,  and  made  much 
of  it. 

Two  nights  later  it  was  sung  again,  by  spe- 
cial request,  and,  when  at  the  close  of  the  meet- 
ing the  invitation  was  given,  the  reporter  sur- 
prised his  associates  by  climbing  down  from 
the  press  table,  and  taking  his  place  in  the  saw- 
dust trail. 


84 


DE  BREWER'S  BIG  HOSSES 


When  he  took  Mr.  Sunday's  hand,  there 
was  a  desperate  gleam  of  earnestness  in  his 
eyes,  but  he  said  nothing. 

He  returned  to  his  office,  and  wrote  his  ac- 
count of  the  service,  as  though  nothing  had 
happened  in  his  own  life,  but  there  was  a 
new  note  in  his  article,  which  had  never  been 
there  before,  a  sense  of  conviction  that  struck 
all  who  read  it. 

From  that  time  on  he  was  constant  in  his 
attendance  at  the  press  stands,  but  he  was  more 
silent  and  taciturn  even  than  before. 

He  had  nothing  to  say  beyond  a  curt  word 
of  thanks  to  those  who  congratulated  him  on 
the  stand  he  had  taken. 

The  publisher,  who  had  engineered  the  ex- 
periment, said  nothing. 

He  was  wise  enough  to  know  that  nothing 
but  the  voice  of  God  could  have  an  effect  in  a 
life  as  far  gone  as  this  one. 

And  so  the  meetings  drew  gradually  to  a 
close. 

The  change  in  the  newspaper  man  was  now 
obvious.  His  shaking  hand  was  gone.  His 
blood-shot  eyes  had  disappeared.  The  pallor 
in  his  face  was  slowly  giving  way  before  the 
normal  flush  of  health. 

And  his  articles  were  proving  to  be  some  of 


DE  BREWER'S  BIG  HOSSES  85 


the  most  inspiring  that  had  ever  been  written 
of  our  campaigns. 

It  was  plain  that  he  had  found  something 
which  he  had  missed  before — that  a  power  had 
come  into  his  life  which  was  holding  him  to 
soberness,  where  drugs  had  failed  completely. 

Local  physicians,  who  had  attended  him  at 
various  periods,  regarded  him  with  amazement, 
and  some  of  them  said  that  it  was  only  an 
overly  excited  product  of  the  emotions. 

But  he  remained  sober.  There  could  be 
no  doubting  that  fact. 

Would  the  effect  continue?  From  time  to 
time  we  heard  from  the  city,  and  occasionally 
the  publisher  sent  us  a  word  of  the  conditions 
which  had  followed  our  meetings,  but  nothing 
was  said  of  the  reporter. 

It  was  only  a  short  time  ago,  through  a 
friend,  that  I  heard  of  the  sequel  of  the  story. 

The  newspaper  man's  conversion,  strange  as 
it  may  seem,  from  a  medical  diagnosis,  had 
been  permanent. 

His  appetite  for  liquor  had  disappeared  as 
though  an  unseen  power  had  wiped  it  from 
his  life. 

It  developed  that  once  he  had  told  his  story 
to  the  publisher,  who  had  undertaken  the  ex- 
periment of  his  reformation. 


86         DE  BREWER'S  BIG  HOSSES 


The  crowning  impulse  in  his  stand  for  Christ 
had  come  through  the  singing  of  "De  Brewer's 
Big  Hosses." 

The  song  had  suggested  the  question,  which 
he  had  often  asked  himself  before,  Why  should 
the  power  of  the  breweries  wreck  my  life,  and 
those  of  my  loved  ones? 

Why  haven't  I  the  power  and  the  manhood 
to  fight  such  a  force  for  evil? 

Why  should  I  stand  by,  and  let  the  Big 
Hosses  of  the  Brewers  run  over  me,  and  my 
wife,  and  my  home,  and  reduce  me  to  a  con- 
dition of  pauperism  and  beggary,  and  charity? 

Am  I  not  a  man?  Has  not  God  given  me 
the  knowledge  of  right  and  wrong — and  the 
power  to  demonstrate  that  knowledge  in  my 
own  life? 

Why  then  should  I  let  any  men,  or  any  or- 
ganization of  men  send  me  to  the  devil? 

Why  should  I  admit  that  the  big  horses  of 
the  brewers  can  hurl  me  to  the  ground,  and 
batter  out  my  hope  of  peace  in  this  world — 
and  the  next? 

Surely,  there  must  be  something  I  can  do  to 
defend  myself? 

Surely  there  must  be  something  that  will 
come  to  my  rescue  when  I  haven't  the  power 
to  fight  on  in  the  face  of  temptation  ? 


DE  BREWER'S  BIG  HOSSES  87 


It  was  these  questions  that  led  him  to  fling 
his  whole  problem  on  the  all-protecting  arms 
of  God,  which  led  him  from  the  reporters' 
table  to  the  saw-dust  trail,  where  before  those 
men,  who  had  known  him  in  the  days  of  his  sin, 
he  made  a  public  profession  to  the  great  God, 
who  will  show  erring  men  the  way  to  the  Cross. 

De  Brewer's  Big  Hosses  had  won  again  I 

They  will  always  win  if  the  message  of  the 
song  is  allowed  to  sink  deeply  enough. 

They  will  always  win  if  a  conviction  of  the 
evil  they  are  doing  can  be  established  in  those 
lives,  which  they  have  mangled  beneath  their 
heavy  feet. 

They  will  always  win  if  their  victims  can  be 
given  breathing  space  enough  to  see  the  great 
gulf  between  God  and  the  devil — the  gulf  be- 
tween the  cupidity  and  the  greed  of  the  brew- 
ers, that  thrive  on  wrecked  lives,  and  the  all- 
saving  grace  of  God,  that  seeks  only  the  lost, 
and  seeks  only  to  point  the  way  of  salvation 
to  men,  who  have  abandoned  all  hope  in  this 
life,  and  that  to  come. 

Oh,  I'll  harness  dem  hosses  to  de  temp'rance  cart, 
Hit  'em  wid  a  gad  to  gib  'em  a  start; 
I'll  teach  'em  how  for  to  haw  and  gee, 
For  dem  big  hosses  can't  run  over  me! 


Molly  and  the  Baby,  Don't  Yoa  Know* 


H.S.T«ylor. 

SOLO. 


COPYRIGHT.  1915.  BY  TAYLOR  AND  HERBERT.  RENEWAL. 
HOMER  A,  RODEMtAVtfl.  ONWER. 
■NTERKATIONAL  COPYRIGHT  SECURED. 


1.  There's  &    pa-tient  lit  •  tie  wom-an  here  be -low, 

2.  You    may  tell  the  liq  -  our  -  eel  -  ler  Dot   to  crow, 

3.  You    may  tell  the  pol  •  i  -  ti-cians  they  may  go, 


And 


will 


lit-tio  kid  that  ought  to  have  a  show; 
ner-er  get  a  niek-el  from  me  now; 
in  for  pro-hi-bi-tion,  head  and  toe! 


Now  I'll  give  the  whis-  ky  up, 
He  may  keep  his  pois-oned  trash* 
For    at  last  I've  turned  my  cost, 


And  I'll  take  a  cof  -  fee  cup  With  Mol-ly  and  the  Ba-by,  don't  you  know! 
And  I'll  put  a-way  my  cash  For  Mol-ly  and  the  Ba-by,  don't  you  knowl 
And  I'll  cast  a  tercp'rance  vote  For  Mol-ly  and  the  Ba-by,  don't  you  know! 


Molly  and  the  Baby. 


Don't  jou  know,  don't  yon  know,  what  a     fel«lov  ought  to  do, 


He  should  try     to  be     a  man,  and    to   do   the  best    he  can 


V 


MOLLY  AND  THE  BABY 

There's  a  patient  little  woman  here  below, 

And  a  little  kid  that  ought  to  have  a  show; 

Now  111  give  the  whiskey  up 

And  I'll  take  a  coffee  cup 

With  Mollie  and  the  Baby,  don't  you  know ! 

The  most  interesting  and  unusual  types  of 
persons  with  whom  we  have  come  in  contact,  in 
our  work,  are  victims  of  drink. 

The  kind  of  a  man  who  becomes  the  slave  of 
the  drink  habit  is  nearly  always  temperamental 
and  highly  emotional.  For  that  reason,  he  is 
often  dramatic  in  his  conversation,  and  sur- 
prisingly sudden  in  yielding  to  the  influence  of 
music. 

Sometimes,  it  takes  a  long  time  for  a  convic- 
tion of  sin  to  fall  upon  him,  but  the  drunkard 
is  often  pathetically  conscious  of  his  state. 
And  although  drink  does,  undoubtedly,  de- 
stroy much  of  the  finer  feelings,  it  does  not 
harden  the  heart.  The  workers  who  have  dealt 
with  our  converts  can  testify  to  the  agony  of 

90 


MOLLY  AND  THE  BABY  91 


penitence  which  is  so  common  among  those 
whose  lives  have  been  ruined  by  alcohol. 

Many  in  New  York  will  remember  "the 
Professor"  as  he  came  to  be  called. 

Unbelievably  dirty  and  ragged  as  he  was, 
when  he  first  became  a  conspicuous  figure  at 
the  Billy  Sunday  meetings,  there  was  yet  about 
him  the  faint  reflection  of  education  and  cul- 
ture. His  speech  too,  although  blurred  and 
indistinct,  had  the  delicate  and  elusive  modula- 
tions, which  spell  refinement  and  scholarship. 

Night  after  night,  his  tall,  gaunt  figure 
would  come  staggering  in,  only  to  slump  down 
in  a  seat ;  and  soon  he  would  be  either  asleep  or 
in  an  unconscious  condition,  swaying  about,  his 
eyes  half  closed,  his  face  pale,  a  point  to  which 
many  eyes  wandered  in  distress  and  pity. 

Some  of  the  workers  tried  to  talk  to  him,  but 
his  replies  seemed  to  indicate  that  he  was  not 
able  to  understand  what  they  said.  But  all  the 
time,  God's  grace  was  working  in  his  heart,  and 
talking  to  his  brain,  although  the  poor  fellow 
seemed  more  intoxicated  on  every  night. 

At  last,  when  we  had  grown  accustomed  to 
seeing  him  get  up  and  stumble  out  toward  the 
close  of  the  meetings,  he  came  down  the  aisle 
with  hundreds  of  others.  That  night,  however, 
he  was  worse  than  ever.    If  those  around  him 


92 


MOLLY  AND  THE  BABY 


had  not  helped  him,  he  would  never  have 
reached  our  platform.  As  it  was,  he  had  no 
more  than  done  so,  when  he  fell  flat  upon  his 
face  in  the  sawdust. 

It  was  so  hopeless  to  expect  him  to  remem- 
ber what  he  had  done  that  we  supposed  his  con- 
version would  not  last  out  the  night.  But  we 
saw  that  he  had  shelter,  anyway.  The  next 
day  he  was  still  frightfully  intoxicated,  but  in 
moments  of  consciousness  he  reiterated  the  one 
statement  he  had  made  the  night  before:  "I  am 
through — at  last!" 

The  kind  persons  who  took  him  in  saw  that 
he  had  a  bath,  and  clean  clothes  and  sustaining 
food.  Two  days  afterward  he  came  to  the 
meeting,  shaking  like  a  man  with  a  chill,  for 
the  alcohol  was  draining  out  of  him,  but  he  was 
clear  eyed  and  resolute. 

Then  we  saw  that  he  really  had  a  fighting 
chance  for  salvation,  although  whether  his  frail 
body  would  outlive  the  period  of  physical  re- 
construction was  a  question. 

That  night,  after  the  meeting,  sitting  be- 
tween me  and  a  sweet  faced  woman  whom  we 
called  (behind  her  back)  "The  Angel,"  the 
Professor  told  us  his  story. 

Fifteen  years  before  he  had  been  the  head  of 
a  department  in  a  well  known  Xew  Jersey  col- 


MOLLY  AND  THE  BABY  93 


lege.  He  had  been  a  member  of  some  of  the 
exclusive  New  York  clubs.  He  had  been  wel- 
comed and  received  in  the  most  select  circles. 
Of  course,  he  did  not  say  so,  but  we  could  see, 
as  he  talked,  that  he  must  have  been  exception- 
ally brilliant  and  charming. 

His  college  work  was  very  exacting,  and  he 
was  often  fagged  and  weary.  He  formed  the 
habit  of  drinking  brandy  or  whiskey  late  at 
night,  as  he  sat  alone,  striving  to  keep  up  with 
the  demands  of  his  office. 

Pretty  soon  it  was  so  that  he  could  not  work 
without  stimulants.  Then,  one  day,  to  his  hor- 
ror, he  awoke  at  noon  on  the  floor  of  his  study, 
with  an  empty  whiskey  bottle  to  tell  him  that 
he  must  have  been  lying  there,  intoxicated,  for 
hours.    He  had  missed  his  morning  lecture. 

This  frightened  him,  and  he  tried  to  leave 
drink  alone  entirely,  only  to  discover  that  he 
was  a  hopeless  victim  of  the  habit. 

Secretly  terrified,  he  struggled,  but  if  he 
succeeded  in  not  drinking  anything  for  a  week, 
he  ended  by  spending  Sunday  in  a  condition  of 
abject  intoxication. 

It  was  not  long  before  the  college  became 
aware  of  his  weakness.  In  six  weeks  he  was 
asked  to  resign  his  professorship. 

Disgraced,  humiliated,  without  means  of 


94  MOLLY  AND  THE  BABY 

livelihood,  he  sank  with  startling  swiftness. 
Trembling,  but  clear  and  lucid  in  mind,  the 
poor  fellow  outlined  to  us  his  downward 
plunge.  The  Angel's  compassionate  heart 
was  wrung  by  the  story.  She  put  her  hand  on 
his  shoulder  to  steady  him  as  he  told  us  of  his 
conversion. 

He  had  no  recollection,  whatever,  of  how  he 
had  happened  to  be  in  the  vicinity  of  the  taber- 
nacle. He  had  long  since  ceased  to  have  a 
place  to  sleep  or  regular  food.  He  must  have 
followed  the  crowd.  At  any  rate,  the  first 
definite  fact  he  remembered  was  that  a  song 
was  being  sung.    It  was  this : 

There's  a  patient  little  woman  here  below, 

And  a  little  kid  that  ought  to  have  a  show; 

Now  I'll  give  the  whiskey  up, 

And  I'll  take  a  coffee  cup 

With  Molly  and  the  Baby,  don't  you  know ! 

You  may  tell  the  liquor-seller  not  to  crow, 

He  will  never  get  a  nickel  from  me  now; 

He  may  keep  his  poisoned  trash, 

And  I'll  put  away  my  cash, 

For  Molly  and  the  Baby,  don't  you  know! 

You  may  tell  the  politicians  they  may  go, 

I  am  in  for  prohibition,  head  and  toe! 

For  at  last  I've  turned  my  coat, 

And  I'll  cast  a  temp'rance  vote, 

For  Molly  and  the  Baby,  don't  you  know ! 


MOLLY  AND  THE  BABY 


95 


The  song  brought  home  to  his  dazed  mind 
all  that  he  had  lost.  There  was  no  Mollie 
waiting  for  him.  No  little  children  would  ever 
climb  his  knee.  No  forgiving  kiss  would  ever 
fall  on  his  lips.  He  had  forfeited  his  man's 
birthright.  There  was  nothing  to  call  to  him. 
Behind  him,  years  ago,  lay  the  associations  of 
his  college  days  and  his  professorship.  In  the 
fifteen  years  since  that  time  he  had  known 
only  outcasts  like  himself.  Never,  he  said, 
would  there  be  a  sweet,  pure  woman  to  bless 
him  with  her  love. 

And  out  of  all  that  suffering,  which  went  on 
in  his  heart  from  day  to  day,  while  he  wandered 
the  streets,  and  begged  for  the  few  cents  which 
would  buy  him  a  drink  and  a  morsel  of  food, 
there  gradually  arose  the  determination  to  for- 
sake that  which  had  dragged  him  down.  But 
he  was  not  certain  that  he  could  do  so.  He 
knew,  better  than  any  one  could  tell  him,  how 
his  body,  soaked  with  the  poison,  would  make 
him  suffer  if  he  tried  to  eliminate  it. 

That  night  when  he  had  "hit  the  trail,"  we 
had  sung  the  song  of  Mollie  again.  (A  fact 
which  I  had  forgotten.)  And  although  he 
was  more  intoxicated,  even,  than  usual,  the 
processes  of  his  mind  were  astonishingly  clear. 
He  had  known  perfectly  what  he  was  doing  al- 


96 


MOLLY  AND  THE  BABY 


though  he  had  been  utterly  unable  to  say  more 
than  the  one  sentence,  "I  am  through — at  last." 

The  Angel  spoke  to  him  words  of  such  in- 
spired cheer  and  power  that  the  others  slipped 
away,  leaving  them  together. 

We  understood  that  the  Angel  obtained  the 
Professor  some  light  clerical  work.  In  a  week 
he  had  so  changed  in  appearance,  and  was  so 
happy  and  so  eager  to  re-establish  himself  that 
even  those  who  did  not  know  his  story  turned 
and  looked  after  him,  for  it  almost  seemed  as 
though  a  radiance  shone  from  his  face. 

He  was  a  handsome  man,  when  his  beard  was 
trimmed  and  his  hair  cut;  gradually  his  reju- 
venation went  on.  He  bought  some  clothes 
which  fitted  him.  His  hands  grew  steady,  and 
his  speech  took  on  the  clipped  incisiveness  of 
the  man  who  knows  what  he  is  talking  about. 

Those  by  whom  he  was  employed  discovered 
that  they  could  entrust  him  with  much  more 
exacting  work,  paying  well.  Incredible  as  it 
may  seem,  before  long  he  was  again  earning  a 
good  salary. 

A  few  weeks  after  the  close  of  the  Xew  York 
campaign,  he  wrote  to  a  friend  as  follows: — 

"I  know  you  will  rejoice  with  me  when  I  tell 
you  that  the  lady,  who  was  so  appropriately 


MOLLY  AND  THE  BABY  97 


nicknamed  the  Angel  at  your  meetings  has 
consented  to  become  my  wife.  It  hardly  seems 
possible  that  that  terrible  vision  of  loneliness, 
homelessness  and  lovelessness  which  your  song, 
Mollie  and  the  Baby,  put  before  me, — that 
vision  which  drove  me  crying,  to  the  feet  of 
Christ,  is  to  be  dispelled  by  a  home  and  a  dear 
wife  of  my  own.  Think  of  it !  She  is  willing 
to  trust  me.  She  is  willing  to  believe  in  me. 
I  can  hardly  believe  my  good  fortune.  Day 
and  night  I  thank  God  who  has  brought  me 
out  of  my  sin. 

"We  are  to  have  a  little  home,  and  Mollie — 
and,  perhaps,  if  God  wills,  the  babies,  will  be 
mine.  Need  I  say  the  song  I  like  to  hear  best 
from  the  Angel?       Yours,  in  Christ, 

"The  Professor." 

It  is  a  strange  fact  that  men  are  sometimes 
converted  while  so  intoxicated  that  they  cannot 
speak  a  coherent  word.  In  Philadelphia  a 
man  stumbled  down  the  trail,  one  night,  in  such 
a  condition  that  he  fell  against  those  around 
him.  That  night,  too,  we  had  sung  "Molly 
and  the  Baby."  We  have  grown  accustomed 
to  seeing  one  or  two  drunken  men  on  the  trail 
whenever  we  sing  that  selection,  for  it  has  a 
peculiar  searching  appeal  for  them. 


98  MOLLY  AND  THE  BABY 


This  man,  while  apparently  so  intoxicated, 
was  able  to  tell  the  workers  who  approached 
him,  his  story. 

A  year  before  he  had  had  a  home,  and  a  wife, 
Mollie,  and  two  beautiful  children.  He  was 
a  mining  engineer,  and  his  business  called  him 
away  from  his  home  at  that  time.  He  met  a 
wild  crowd  of  men,  and  began  to  drink,  a  habit 
he  had  never  known  before. 

He  lost  his  position  with  the  firm  of  con- 
structors who  had  hired  him,  and  secured  an- 
other, not  so  good,  which  took  him  further 
away  from  his  home.  He  lost  that  also  in  a 
month,  and  then  he  could  not  get  anything,  at 
all,  to  do. 

At  first,  he  had  written  to  his  wife,  but  as 
he  sunk  lower  and  lower,  and  had  drifted  from 
town  to  town,  his  letters  stopped.  It  had  been 
six  months,  now,  since  he  had  written  at  all. 

The  last  he  had  heard  from  her,  one  of  the 
children  was  ill,  and  she  had  frantically  begged 
him  to  come  home.  But  the  grip  of  alcohol 
was  so  complete  that  even  this  appeal  made 
no  effect. 

He  had  wandered  far.  The  little  town 
where  his  Molly  waited  for  him  was  a  thousand 
miles  away.  A  collection  was  taken  up  for 
him  and  he  was  sent  to  a  boarding  house,  where 


MOLLY  AND  THE  BABY  99 


he  would  be  looked  after  and  then  a  telegram 
was  dispatched  in  his  name  to  his  wife. 

The  answer  came  back,  collect:  "Come 
home.  May  died  three  months  ago.  No 
money.    Am  desperate." 

A  purse  was  made  up  and  telegraphed  to 
the  woman,  whom  the  workers  kept  on  calling 
"Mollie,"  although  they  now  knew  her  right 
name,  and  then  they  set  to  work  to  help  her 
husband. 

It  was  two  weeks  before  they  could  get  him 
on  his  feet,  for  he  was  terribly  exhausted. 

It  is  hard  to  conceive  such  a  passion  of  grati- 
tude as  he  poured  out  in  prayer,  just  before  he 
left  for  his  home.  And  when,  kneeling  around 
him,  with  the  workers  who  had  interested  them- 
selves in  him,  he  burst  into  sobs,  which  told, 
better  than  words,  of  his  contrite  heart. 

His  wife  wrote  the  workers  on  his  arrival. 
She  was  a  tenderly  nurtured  and  educated 
woman,  it  appeared,  but  she  had  been  unable 
to  get  any  proper  work  to  do,  when  she  had 
been  thrown  on  her  own  resources,  and  she  had 
been  obliged  to  do  ironing  in  a  laundry  in  order 
to  keep  food  in  the  mouth  of  her  remaining 
child  and  herself. 

She  was  convinced  that  her  husband  would 
never  have  been  returned  to  her,  if  it  had  not 


100  MOLLY  AND  THE  BABY 


been  for  the  song  which  touched  his  heart,  and 
showed  him  his  vision  of  God.  He  told  her 
that  he  had  been  so  despairing  of  himself  and 
of  hope  for  the  future  that  he  had  grimly  de- 
termined to  put  her  and  his  children  out  of  his 
recollection,  and  had  deliberately  tried  to  end 
his  own  wretched  life  in  as  short  a  time  as  pos- 
sible, by  drink.  Judging  by  the  condition  in 
which  we  had  first  seen  him,  he  had  almost  suc- 
ceeded. 

The  number  of  men  who  wander  away  from 
wives,  children  and  homes,  through  the  influ- 
ence of  drink,  must  be  amazingly  large.  In 
every  city  where  we  have  had  a  campaign,  the 
singing  of  "Molly  and  the  Baby"  brings  at 
least  one  of  these  poor  wanderers  to  repent- 
ance, and  I  happen  to  know  that  in  most  cases 
it  is  lasting. 

In  Pittsburgh,  one  night,  a  trio  of  shabby, 
unshaven  men  came  down  the  trail  together,  as 
we  were  singing  that  song.  But  they  were  en- 
tire strangers  to  each  other.  After  the  work- 
ers had  interviewed  them,  they  began  to  ex- 
change confidences. 

"It  was  the  song  that  did  it  for  me,"  one 
said.  "There  is  a  little  woman  in  a  village 
down  south  waiting  for  me,  if  she  is  still  alive. 


MOLLY  AND  THE  BABY  101 


I  have  done  my  best  to  forget  her,  but  as  the 
song  was  sung,  I  could  see  her  again,  before 
my  very  eyes,  it  seemed  to  me." 

"Same  here,"  said  another.  "My  wife  is 
way  up  in  Vermont.  My  two  boys,  too.  I'm 
going  home  to  them  if  I  have  to  walk  the  ties." 

The  third  man,  who  had  been  trying  to  con- 
trol himself,  broke  down  at  this  point  and  burst 
into  a  torrent  of  the  most  heartrending  sobs. 
The  workers  quieted  him  as  well  as  they  could, 
and  prayed  with  him,  and  finally  he  told  his 
story,  one  of  the  saddest  narratives  of  the  cam- 
paign. 

This  Molly  was  dead.  She  and  her  baby 
had  been  buried,  only  the  week  before,  in  the 
same  grave. 

He  had  been  a  photographer,  with  a  splendid 
business,  when  he  first  began  to  drink.  He 
was  "a  good  fellow"  writh  many  friends,  and 
although  he  was  newly  married,  he  began  to 
spend  more  and  more  of  his  evenings  in  saloons 
with  his  chums. 

His  business  suffered  first.  His  young 
wife,  of  a  timid,  sensitive  nature,  remonstrated 
with  him  gently.  He  answered  that  she  had 
no  right  to  dictate  to  him  as  to  his  conduct. 
Crushed  and  broken  she  said  nothing  more. 


102  MOLLY  AND  THE  BABY 


He  knew,  in  his  heart,  that  she  was  right,  but 
the  devil  of  perversity  made  him  go  all  the 
faster  in  the  road  of  destruction. 

One  night  in  a  fit  of  intoxication,  he  had 
struck  her.  In  the  morning,  she  went  to  her 
mother.  He  would  always  remember  her  little 
sobs  as  she  packed  her  little  bag,  but  at  the 
time  he  laughed  at  them. 

Shortly  afterward  he  sold  out  his  business 
and  obtained  a  position  as  an  assistant  camera 
man  with  a  motion  picture  firm  in  another 
city.  Contrary  to  his  expectations  the  rules  of 
conduct  in  his  new  field  were  most  severe. 
The  first  day  he  appeared  for  work  with  liquor 
on  his  breath,  he  was  discharged. 

He  never  wrote  to  his  wife.  He  worked, 
occasionally,  long  enough  for  money  for  liquor, 
wandering  from  one  place  to  another,  and  sink- 
ing lower  and  lower  in  the  scale,  until  he  was 
actually  reduced  to  beggary. 

On  the  day  of  his  conversion  he  had  hap- 
pened to  see  our  Tabernacle,  and  drawn  solely 
by  curiosity,  he  had  followed  the  crowd. 

The  service  awakened  the  memories  of  his 
other  life,  memories  that  he  had  told  himself 
were  dead,  and  then  the  call  of  God  found  its 
way  into  his  heart.  He  sobbed  out  his  peni- 
tence at  the  Cross,  determined  to  sober  himself, 


MOLLY  AND  THE  BABY  103 


find  work,  and  to  write  the  good  news  to  his 
Molly.  Then,  as  he  came  out  of  the  meeting, 
in  an  afternoon  newspaper  which  some  one  had 
thrown  away,  he  saw  a  column  of  items  of  cor- 
respondence from  his  home  town. 

Trembling,  he  pulled  the  newspaper  from 
his  ragged  coat,  and  showed  it  to  us.  Among 
the  items  was  a  paragraph  which  read : — 

"Our  townspeople  will  learn  with  the  deep- 
est regret  of  the  death  of  Mrs.    and  her 

week  old  infant,  which  occurred  at  the  home  of 
her  mother,  in  Ohio,  three  days  ago.  She  was 
one  of  our  most  popular  girls,  and  her  untimely 
death  will  cause  sorrow  in  many  circles." 

No  one  could  have  listened,  dry  eyed,  to  the 
poor  fellow's  burst  of  grief. 

He  had  come  back, — too  late. 

There  was  nothing  to  do  but  pray  for  him. 
The  workers  knelt  together  about  him  and 
those  other  two  wanderers,  and  prayed  that 
God  would  help  the  stricken  sinner  to  endure 
his  sorrow. 

They  hear  from  him  once  in  a  while.  He  is 
a  mission  worker,  now,  giving  all  his  time,  and 
strength  to  the  helping  of  others.  Those  who 
work  with  him  say  that  his  singing  of  "Molly 
and  the  Baby,"  and  the  story  of  his  own  life 
(which  he  never  can  tell  without  tears)  form 


104  MOLLY  AND  THE  BABY 


the  most  appealing  temperance  sermon  to 
which  they  ever  listened. 

The  hardest  drinkers  to  reach,  and  touch,  we 
have  found,  are  those  who  still  manage  to  pre- 
serve their  appearance  of  respectability,  in 
spite  of  their  habit. 

In  one  city,  where  we  conducted  a  campaign, 
a  well  dressed,  prosperous  looking  man  at- 
tracted our  attention,  as  we  looked  over  the 
audience. 

We  could  see  that  his  face  reflected  trouble 
or  grief  of  some  kind.  But  it  never  occurred 
to  us  that  he  might  be  a  spasmodic  drunkard 
until  one  night,  when,  by  request,  we  sang 
"Molly  and  the  Baby." 

He  was  seated  near  the  front,  and  we  could 
see  his  face  distinctly.  He  shivered,  it  seemed 
to  us,  as  we  began  to  sing,  and  as  verse  after 
verse  was  ended,  his  head  sank  lower  and 
lower  on  his  breast. 

We  all  felt  strangely  attracted  to  him,  and 
to  the  problem  which  his  agitation  presented. 
Later  on  in  the  service  we  were  asked  to  re- 
peat the  song.  This  time,  there  was  no  doubt- 
ing the  effect  which  it  had  on  him.  His  head 
fell  to  his  hands,  and  his  shoulders  shook.  By 
the  glances  of  those  who  sat  near  him  we 
judged  that  he  must  be  sobbing.    When  the 


MOLLY  AND  THE  BABY  105 


call  for  trail  hitters  was  given,  he  was  the  first 
to  respond. 

His  story  was  an  unusual  one,  and  he  gave  it 
freely,  in  an  intelligent,  cultured  voice. 

He  was  a  physician.  And  he  had  married, 
we  judged,  an  exceedingly  fine  woman.  They 
had  several  children,  many  friends,  and  were 
most  happy,  until  the  doctor  began  frequent- 
ing a  club,  where  heavy  drinking  was  the 
custom. 

A  number  of  his  wealthy  patients  were  mem- 
bers, and  at  first  he  excused  himself  for  his  in- 
dulgence, on  the  basis  of  "good  business." 

His  wife,  a  keen  eyed,  sincere  Christian,  saw 
the  danger,  at  once,  and  tried  to  avert  it.  She 
begged  and  prayed,  but  her  husband  went  his 
way.  At  first,  nothing  unusual  happened,  but 
gradually  those  wealthy  patients,  with  whom 
he  had  first  learned  to  drink,  began  to  give 
their  patronage  to  other  physicians,  and  they 
wTere  always  men  who  were  known  not  to  touch 
liquor  in  any  form.  In  a  crisis  they  preferred 
a  doctor  whose  brain  was  not  dulled  by 
whiskey. 

His  wife  pointed  these  facts  out  to  him,  but 
by  this  time  he  was  too  far  in  the  clutches  of 
alcohol  to  heed  her  warning. 

He  still  had  a  practice,  but  it  was  steadily 


106  MOLLY  AND  THE  BABY 


dwindling.  He  managed  to  keep  from  alco- 
hol during  the  day,  but  after  dinner  he  drank 
half  the  night.  When  his  wife  saw  that  the 
situation  was  apparently  hopeless,  she  had 
gone  to  live  in  a  little  country  cottage,  which 
she  owned,  taking  her  children  with  her.  The 
estrangement  between  them  was  unknown  to 
most  of  their  friends,  but  was  none  the  less 
acute. 

"It  was  only  tonight,"  the  doctor  said,  "as 
you  sang,  that  I  realized  how  everything  worth 
while  was  slipping  away  from  me.  I  saw  that 
my  wife  and  my  children  and  my  home  were 
going;  that  I  was  losing  my  practice;  that  I 
was  losing  my  skill ;  and  that  in  a  few  months 
more  my  hand  would  be  so  uncertain  that  I 
would  no  longer  dare  to  attempt  an  operation. 
And  more  than  all  else  I  saw  that  I  was  losing 
God. 

"  'Molly  and  the  Baby'  "  he  said,  with  misty 
eyes,  "brought  me  back  to  the  Cross.  It 
pierced  through  my  conceit  and  self-sufficiency. 
I  saw  what  my  wife  must  have  suffered.  I 
saw  why  she  took  the  children  away  from  my 
influence.  I  saw  that  the  very  fact  of  her  love 
for  me  had  made  her  remove  herself  from  an 
atmosphere,  which  I  had  polluted.  I  am  go- 
ing to  her  tonight,  Mr.  Rodeheaver,"  he 


MOLLY  AND  THE  BABY  107 


ended.  "I  shall  take  the  midnight  train  to 
that  quiet  little  village  where  she  lives,  and  I 
shall  kneel  beside  the  bed  of  our  children  and 
pledge  myself  never  again  to  touch  a  drop  of 
liquor.  And  with  God's  help,  I  shall  keep 
that  pledge." 

Molly  and  the  Babies  would  welcome  him 
home,  we  knew,  with  open  arms.  We  heard 
later  of  how  they  did  so,  in  a  letter  that  the  doc- 
tor wrote. 

Late  at  night,  after  his  wife  was  in  bed,  he 
arrived  at  the  sleepy  little  station. 

He  walked  down  the  village  street,  and 
knocked  at  the  door  of  the  little  house,  with 
its  vines,  and  flowers,  and  garden. 

He  wrote  that  he  would  never  forget  how 
the  moon  shone  down,  and  showed  him  how 
his  wife  and  children  had  been  occupying  them- 
selves at  home  while  he  was  drinking  himself  to 
ruin  in  the  city.  Everywhere  were  evidences 
of  their  loving,  thrifty  care.  There  were 
chicken  coops  in  the  back  garden ;  rows  of  peas 
and  poles  of  beans;  flowers,  and  a  pigeon  loft 
on  the  roof  of  the  old  barn. 

When  his  wife  opened  the  door  that  sixth 
sense,  which  women  possess,  told  her,  before  a 
word  was  spoken,  what  had  happened.  She 
fell,  sobbing,  into  his  arms. 


108 


MOLLY  AND  THE  BABY 


Together  they  knelt  beside  the  beds  in  which 
their  children  lay.  Together,  they  prayed  for 
strength  to  resist  his  temptation.  Together, 
they  clasped  hands  and  pledged  themselves  to 
the  fight. 

He  is  now  fast  becoming  one  of  the  best 
surgeons  of  the  city.  His  wife  and  children 
love  him  dearly,  and  are  intensely  proud  of 
him.  And  his  patients,  even  those  from  whom 
he  first  learned  to  use  intoxicants,  are  again  on 
his  books. 

"Molly  and  the  Baby,"  had  helped  another 
man  to  victory — and  to  God. 

You  may  tell  the  politicians  they  may  go, 

I  am  in  for  prohibition,  head  and  toe ! 

For  at  last  I've  turned  my  coat 

And  I'll  cast  a  temperance  vote 

For  Molly  and  the  Baby,  don't  you  know. 


He  Will  Not  Let  Me  Fall. 


Chobus. 


He    will  not  let    me  fall,  He    will  not  let  me  fall, 

He      will  not  let    me  tell. 


109 


VI 


HE  WILL  NOT  LET  ME  FALL 

The  number  and  variety  of  the  stories  which 
have  come  to  us  of  temptation,  overcome 
through  the  message  of  our  songs,  would  as- 
tonish those  who  have  not  had  an  opportunity 
for  intimate,  personal  work  for  the  Kingdom. 

It  is  literally  true  that  certain  of  the  great 
gospel  songs  not  only  have  sung  their  way 
around  the  world,  but  have  sung  their  way  into 
every  class  of  society  and  every  type  of  men 
and  women,  from  the  millionaire  to  the  derelict. 

I  have  in  mind  in  this  connection  a  song  that 
has  had  a  peculiar  effect  in  winning  to  Christ 
converts,  who  had  been  caught  in  the  meshes  of 
a  great  temptation,  and  who  were  hesitating 
before  the  last  fatal  plunge. 

This  is  the  song,  "Jesus  Will  Not  Let  Me 
Fall,"  with  its  inspired  words  of  hope  and  in- 
spiration, and  its  soft,  winning  music,  wonder- 
fully calculated  to  appeal  to  those  hearts  strug- 
gling in  the  sea  of  doubt  and  trial. 

Let  me  give  you  the  words  of  the  song  before 
no 


HE  WILL  NOT  LET  ME  FALL  111 


I  tell  you  something  of  the  instances  of  soul- 
saving  and  reformation,  accomplished  through 
them. 

My  faith  temptation  shall  not  move, 
For  Jesus  knows  it  all, 
And  holds  me  with  His  arms  of  love — 
He  will  not  let  me  fall. 

When  grief  is  more  than  I  can  bear — 
Too  weak  am  I  to  call — 
If  I  but  lift  my  heart  in  pray'r, 
He  will  not  let  me  fall. 

Sometimes  I  falter,  filled  with  fear, 
I  can  not  see  at  all, 
His  voice  I  never  fail  to  hear — 
"I  will  not  let  thee  fall." 

He  will  not  let  me  fall, 

He  will  not  let  me  fall, 

He  is  my  Strength,  my  Hope,  my  all, 

He  will  not  let  me  fall. 

How  wonderfully  true  is  the  message  of  this 
song. 

How  suggestive  of  an  all-saving,  all-power- 
ful friend  in  those  great  moments  of  stress  and 
temptation  when  life  seems  utterly  black  and 
desolate,  and  we  seem  so  helpless  and  inade- 
quate to  save  ourselves  I 


112      HE  WILL  NOT  LET  ME  FALL 


He  will  not  let  you  fall!  The  words  mean 
just  what  they  say. 

Never  has  Jesus  allowed  His  protecting 
arms  to  slip  when  once  they  close  about  the 
truly  repentant  sinner,  honestly  seeking  the 
way  of  salvation. 

He  is  the  one  friend  who  never  fails — the 
one  Savior,  who  has  the  power  and  the  will  and 
the  love  to  scatter  our  clouds  in  an  instant  of 
time. 

And  how  few  of  us  really  know  him!  How 
few  of  us  have  ever  had  a  real,  personal,  inti- 
mate experience  of  His  love  and  power! 

At  the  close  of  one  of  our  meetings  in  a  large 
eastern  city,  a  haggard  young  man,  whose  face 
bore  the  tell-tale  marks  of  growing  dissipation, 
approached  one  of  our  workers. 

He  had  been  one  of  the  crowd  who  had  taken 
a  public  stand  for  a  new  life  and  a  new  vision, 
and  it  was  evident  that  his  experience  had 
touched  him  very  deeply. 

His  voice  was  husky  and  his  eyes  moist  as  he 
took  the  hand  of  the  worker,  and  said  tremu- 
lously, 

"You  will  never  know  what  that  song  has 
done  for  me.  You  will  never  know  of  the 
crowning  sin  from  which  it  has  saved  me." 

He  hesitated. 


HE  WILL  NOT  LET  ME  FALL  113 


"If  I  had  not  come  to  the  service  tonight,  be- 
fore twelve  o'clock  tonight  I  would  have  been 
a  thief  in  the  eyes  of  the  law." 

The  worker  saw  that  the  young  man  was 
suffering  from  a  desperate  agitation,  and  tried 
to  calm  him.  After  a  while,  the  other  was 
able  to  continue  his  narrative. 

He  was  a  young  man  of  a  good  family,  living 
in  a  small  town  upstate,  from  which  he  had 
come  to  the  city,  where,  through  the  influence 
of  friends,  he  had  secured  a  position  in  a  bank. 

All  would  have  gone  well  had  he  not  met  sev- 
eral young  men,  who  prided  themselves  on 
their  experience  and  knowledge  of  the  night 
life  of  the  city,  and  under  whose  guidance  he 
learned  to  drink,  and  then  to  gamble. 

The  fever  of  the  cards  seized  hold  on  him, 
and  gradually  he  saw  all  of  his  former  ideals 
slipping  away  from  him,  and  was  forgetting 
completely  those  habits  of  strict  church  attend- 
ance, in  which  he  had  been  reared  at  home. 

Then  the  luck  at  the  gambling  tables  began 
to  go  against  him. 

He  found  himself  losing  more  and  more  un- 
til finally  he  was  facing  the  awful  fact  that 
unless  he  could  raise  money  at  once,  in  excess 
of  his  salary,  he  would  be  exposed  to  his  em- 
ployers, and  lose  his  position. 


114      HE  WILL  NOT  LET  ME  FALL 


At  this  moment  of  his  great  temptation,  the 
combination  of  one  of  the  bank  vaults  was  ac- 
cidentally left  on  his  desk,  by  the  mistake  of 
his  immediate  superior. 

It  was  one  of  the  old-fashioned  banks,  where 
the  office  staff  was  more  of  a  congenial  family 
than  a  business  organization,  and  whose  clients 
had  come  down  through  two  generations. 

There  was  no  difficulty  in  his  extracting  a 
package  of  bills  from  the  vault  when  he  was 
sent  into  that  section  of  the  bank  at  closing 
hours  on  a  trivial  errand,  and  his  theft  was  so 
small  that  he  knew  it  would  probably  be  set 
down  to  an  error  or  bookkeeping,  or  if  not,  that 
there  was  practically  no  chance  that  any  direct 
charge  could  fall  on  him. 

With  the  stolen  bills  in  his  pocket,  he  had 
paced  the  streets  for  hours. 

The  man,  to  whom  he  owed  the  gambling 
debt  had  given  him  until  midnight  to  pay — or 
suffer  exposure. 

While  he  was  feverishly  debating  whether  or 
not  to  meet  him,  for  even  then  the  horror  of 
what  he  had  done  had  begun  to  seize  him,  his 
steps  had  taken  him  past  the  Sunday  Taber- 
nacle. 

The  music  pouring  out  through  the  doors, 


HE  WILL  NOT  LET  ME  FALL  115 


and  the  bright  lights  had  attracted  his  tired 
steps  and  worn-out  mind. 

He  dropped  into  a  back  seat,  almost  uncon- 
scious of  what  he  was  doing. 

It  was  not  until  the  song,  "He  Will  Not  Let 
Me  Fall"  began  to  roll  out  over  the  great  au- 
dience that  the  real  meaning  and  import  of  its 
words  began  to  enter  his  heart. 

He  straightened  suddenly  in  his  seat  and  lis- 
tened with  rapt  atttention  until  the  song  was 
finished.  Through  the  darkness  of  his  tempta- 
tion and  doubt  a  great  light  of  hope  was  sud- 
denly flashing  before  him. 

There  was  a  promise  in  that  song — a  sacred 
promise.  With  a  surge  all  the  memories  of 
his  boyhood  days  flooded  back  to  him,  and 
with  them  the  patient  faith  of  his  mother,  whose 
vision  of  God  had  never  been  dimmed. 

He  saw  with  a  terrifying  clearness  what  he 
had  done,  and  what  he  was  about  to  do.  Be- 
cause of  his  weakness  he  was  drifting  into  delib- 
erate sin. 

When  the  invitation  was  given  he  was  one  of 
the  first  and  the  most  determined  to  come  for- 
ward.   His  decision  was  taken. 

His  mind  was  made  up.  He  would  restore 
the  money  in  his  pocket  the  first  thing  the  next 


116      HE  WILL  NOT  LET  ME  FALL 


day,  and  tell  his  employer  frankly  the  whole 
story,  no  matter  what  the  consequences. 

He  was  prepared  for  the  worst,  but  for- 
tunately the  president  of  the  bank  was  a  Chris- 
tian gentleman,  who  endeavored  to  put  into 
practice  in  his  day's  work  the  teachings  of 
Christ. 

He  heard  the  boy's  story  through  without 
comment.  Hardly  had  the  young  man  fin- 
ished when  the  gambler  to  whom  he  owed  the 
money,  sent  in  word  that  he  wished  an  imme- 
diate interview. 

The  president  motioned  the  young  clerk  to 
remain  and  when  the  man  was  shown  into  the 
room,  turned  on  him  with  an  anger  that  made 
him  quail. 

"I  will  pay  you  what  you  claim  is  owing  to 
you,"  he  finished,  "and  my  young  friend  can 
repay  it  to  me  as  a  personal  loan  out  of  his  sal- 
ary. 

"If  I  ever  hear  of  his  going  near  you  again 
not  only  will  I  at  once  discharge  him,  but  I 
will  see  that  your  case  is  taken  without  delay  to 
the  attention  of  the  proper  officers  of  the  law." 

The  gambler  slunk  out  of  the  room,  and  the 
young  bank  clerk  returned  to  his  desk,  with  the 
light  of  a  new  hope  and  a  new  resolution  in  his 
eyes. 


HE  WILL  NOT  LET  ME  FALL  117 


They  were  not  emotions  of  the  moment, 
either. 

Today  he  is  one  of  the  most  energetic  and 
tireless  Y.  M.  C.  A.  workers  in  his  city,  and 
in  little  more  than  a  year  has  led  through  his 
personal  efforts  over  a  hundred  young  business 
men  to  the  Christ,  wrho  proved  to  him  to  be 
such  a  wonderful  friend  in  need. 

J esus  will  not  let  you  fall !    No,  indeed ! 

If  you  feel  yourself  slipping,  it  is  because  of 
sin,  and  because  of  your  own  lack  of  faith — 
never  because  of  God. 

He  never  forgets  the  promises  He  has  made 
to  men  through  His  only  begotten  Son. 


le    u  my  Strength, my  Hope,  my  all,     He    will  not  let  me  fall. 


There  is  another  story  from  an  entirely  dif- 
ferent environment,  connected  with  this  song, 
that  I  would  like  to  tell  you — a  story  of  a  dif- 
ferent kind  of  temptation  and  a  different  kind 
of  a  victory. 

This  is  a  story  told  to  one  of  our  women 
workers.  During  one  of  our  afternoon  meet- 
ings an  unusual  spirit  of  sympathy  and  inspira- 


118      HE  WILL  NOT  LET  ME  FALL 


tion  seemed  to  pervade  the  audience,  and  at  the 
close  of  the  service,  among  the  scores  who  took 
their  stand  for  consecrated  lives  was  a  middle- 
aged,  stylishly  dressed  woman,  who  was  easily 
identified  as  one  of  the  best  known  society 
ladies  of  the  city. 

Her  stand  was  a  distinct  surprise,  and  some- 
thing of  a  sensation;  but  it  was  evidently  even 
more  of  a  surprise  to  the  woman,  herself. 

It  was  no  spasmodic  sentiment  seeking  a  mo- 
mentary expression. 

It  was  an  earnest,  genuine  vision  of  God, 
and  it  had  thrust  a  sudden  white  glare  into  the 
hidden  recesses  of  her  soul,  with  some  surpris- 
ing results. 

"It  may  seem  strange,"  she  said,  "but  that 
song,  'He  Will  Not  Let  Me  Fall/  seemed  al- 
most a  mirror,  in  which  I  saw  for  the  first  time 
my  real  life,  and  the  selfishness  and  worldliness 
which  I  had  always  managed  to  hide  from  my- 
self before. 

"For  the  first  time  I  realized  that  I  had 
missed  the  Greatest  Friend  of  All — and  that  I 
had  done  so,  because  in  my  worldly  pride,  I 
thought  I  hadn't  needed  Him. 

"And  so  I  had  allowed  myself  to  drift  away 
into  the  pursuit  of  selfish  social  ambitions  until 
I  was  at  a  point  where  nothing  else  mattered." 


HE  WILL  NOT  LET  ME  FALL  119 


She  hesitated. 

"My  husband  died  about  a  year  ago,  and  on 
his  death  I  found  that  unfortunate  investment 
had  reduced  what  I  had  always  thought  to  be 
an  assured  fortune  to  practically  nothing. 

"In  fact,  I  did  not  have  enough  to  continue 
the  expenses  of  our  home  without  running  into 
debt. 

"But  I  could  not  bring  myself  to  economize 
because  my  daughter  had  just  been  introduced 
to  society,  and  I  was  afraid,  if  I  let  our  friends 
know  our  real  financial  condition,  it  would  in- 
jure her  socially,  and,  and — so  I  have  kept 
things  going,  hoping  that  my  girl  would  make 
a  rich  marriage,  which  would  solve  our  difficul- 
ties. 

"A  short  time  ago  a  man  proposed  to  her, 
who  stands  among  the  wealthiest  bachelors  of 
the  city,  a  man  who  is  received  into  the  most  ex- 
clusive society,  but  whose  personal  life  I  know 
would  not  bear  investigation. 

"There  were  many  ugly  stories  told  of  his 
various  affairs  and  of  his  heartless  conduct  with 
different  women,  but  when  he  asked  for  my  girl 
as  his  wife  I  saw  only  the  fact  that  his  money 
would  restore  us  to  the  position  which  we  had 
always  enjoyed,  and  would  eliminate  all  of  my 
troubles. 


120      HE  WILL  NOT  LET  ME  FALL 


"So  I  encouraged  my  daughter  to  tempor- 
ize with  him,  although  I  knew  she  did  not  love 
him,  and  we  had  about  made  up  our  minds  to 
give  him  a  favorable  answer  to  his  suit.  I  told 
myself  it  was  the  only  way  out  for  us — that 
without  money  or  social  prestige  we  could  have 
no  friends. 

"It  was  not  until  I  came  to  the  meeting  to- 
day and  heard  that  song,  'He  Will  Not  Let 
Me  Fall,'  that  I  saw  in  all  of  my  doubt  and 
worry  I  had  missed  the  greatest  help  of  all — 
that  if  I  had  taken  my  burden  and  trouble  to 
J esus,  really  sincere  in  the  belief  that  he  could 
and  would  save  me — I  would  never  have 
even  considered  sacrificing  my  daughter,  for 
that  is  what  I  see  now  it  amounted  to. 

"Her  marriage  to  such  a  man,  without  love, 
would  have  been  nothing  less  than  a  sin,  which 
I,  in  my  blindness  and  selfishness,  was  allow- 
ing her  to  commit  in  order  that  we  could  profit 
financially  and  socially." 

So  ended  her  story  with  a  gesture  of  quiet 
determination. 

"I  am  going  home  now  to  tell  her  that  when 
the  man  calls  tonight  she  is  to  refuse  his  pro- 
posals point-blank,  and  to  tell  her  just  what 
those  refusals  will  cost  her  and  me. 

"We  will  have  to  give  up  our  home  and  ser- 


HE  WILL  NOT  LET  ME  FALL  121 


vants,  and  I  don't  know  just  what  the  future 
will  have  in  store  for  us  as  a  result,  but  of  one 
thing  I  am  sure,  and  that  is  I  have  the  promise 
of  Jesus  that,  no  matter  what  comes,  He  will 
see  me  through — He  will  not  let  me  fall! 

"And  I  would  rather  have  that  blessed  as- 
surance than  all  of  the  worldly  relief  which  we 
could  get  otherwise.  I  know  that  my  daugh- 
ter will  share  my  views.  In  fact,  I  can  see 
now  the  reproach  with  which  she  has  regarded 
me  more  than  once  when  I  urged  this  suit  to 
her." 

She  meant  what  she  said,  and  she  lost  no  time 
in  putting  her  determination  into  execution. 

The  contemplated  marriage  was  broken  off, 
and  mother  and  daughter  moved  into  a  hum- 
bler, cheaper  home  where  they  had  to  do  their 
own  work,  and  face  the  petty  little  economies 
of  life, 

But  there  was  far  greater  happiness  in  store 
for  them  than  either  had  dreamed. 

Little  more  than  a  year  later  the  daughter 
met  and  fell  really  in  love  with  a  promising 
young  man,  who,  although  poor,  was  sure  of 
a  high  place  in  his  profession,  and  I  am  con- 
fident that  when  the  two  were  married,  the 
mother,  who  blessed  the  union,  did  so  with  a 
clean  heart,  and  a  clear  vision  of  God,  and  an 


122       HE  WILL  NOT  LET  ME  FALL 


assurance  of  the  future  for  herself  and  her 
child,  which  she  could  never  have  had  in  that 
other  marriage. 

He  will  not  let  me  fall. 

When  grief  is  more  than  I  can  bear — 

Too  weak  am  I  to  call — 

If  I  but  lift  my  heart  in  pray'r, 

He  will  not  let  me  fall. 

What  a  precious  promise  in  those  lines ! 

A  young  married  couple,  whose  three-year- 
old  daughter  had  suddenly  been  taken  from 
them  by  death,  furnished  another  striking  ex- 
ample of  the  message  of  this  song. 

The  child  was  one  of  the  brightest  and  most 
winsome  little  ones  in  the  neighborhood. 

The  little  girl  was  a  beautiful  creature,  with 
an  aureole  of  golden  curls  about  her  merry 
face,  and  a  disposition  that  earned  for  her  the 
loving  name  of  "Little  Miss  Sunshine." 

Her  parents  fairly  idolized  her,  and  their 
devotion  was  a  household  word. 

One  night  the  mother  was  awakened  by  a 
croupy  gurgle  from  the  cot  of  their  loved  one. 

In  less  than  ten  hours,  in  spite  of  the  best 
medical  aid  they  could  secure,  they  saw  their 
darling  snatched  from  them  in  a  convulsive 
death  struggle. 


HE  WILL  NOT  LET  ME  FALL  123 


The  day  before  their  home  had  been  the 
abode  of  laughter  and  life  and  love.  Now  it 
was  stricken  by  the  shadow  of  death. 

For  weeks  the  young  parents  literally 
dragged  their  sad  way  about  their  daily  duties, 
with  a  grief  that  was  pitiful  to  see. 

It  was  about  this  time  that  we  opened  a  cam- 
paign in  the  community,  and  in  the  first  days 
some  of  the  neighbors  persuaded  the  young 
couple  to  attend  with  them. 

They  came  several  times. 

Neither  had  been  active  in  Christian  work. 
They  had  thought  of  joining  a  church,  but  had 
never  done  so,  and  the  death  of  their  child  had 
turned  their  half-formed  resolution  now  into 
a  sullen  bitterness. 

It  was  not  until  our  campaign  was  well  under 
way  that  the  Christian  friends  of  the  young 
couple,  who  had  been  watching  eagerly  for  the 
first  sign  that  their  hearts  had  been  touched, 
were  rewarded. 

One  night  we  sang  the  song,  "He  Will  Not 
Let  Me  Fall." 

When  we  reached  the  second  verse,  those 
sitting  nearest  the  young  husband  and  wife 
suddenly  saw  the  latter  burst  into  sobs,  and  a 
moment  later  tears  glistened  in  the  eyes  of  the 
man  at  her  side. 


124      HE  WILL  NOT  LET  ME  FALL 


When  the  invitation  was  given  they  were 
among  the  first  to  take  their  stand,  and  their 
faces  were  streaked  with  tears. 

But  no  longer  were  they  tears  of  a  hopeless 
anguish  and  grief. 

There  was  a  light  in  their  moistened  eyes 
like  the  radiance  of  a  beautiful  rainbow  show- 
ing through  the  clouds  of  a  storm. 

For  the  first  time  they  had  glimpsed  the 
wonderful  promise  of  that  Great  Friend,  whose 
love  for  us  is  so  great  and  tender  and  enduring 
that  it  buries  even  those  griefs  of  the  flesh 
which  come  to  us. 

They  had  found  the  Crucified  Jesus — and 
their  dead  child  had  shown  them  the  way  to 
the  Cross. 

The  stories  of  this  song  could  be  multiplied 
indefinitely. 

Experiences  could  be  given  of  the  results  of 
its  singing  which  embrace  the  whole  gamut  of 
human  emotions,  and  every  station  of  life — 
for  there  is  no  love  like  that  of  Jesus,  there  is 
no  promise  like  that  promise  of  Christ  to 
stricken  men  and  women,  which  has  endured 
through  the  ages — there  is  no  inspiration  as 
satisfying  and  as  all-embracing  as  the  strength 
of  His  Helping  Hand,  and  the  comfort  of  His 
ever-present  Spirit,  and  the  guidance  of  His 


HE  WILL  NOT  LET  ME  FALL  125 


never-dying  Word  for  He  has  told  us  that  in 
His  Presence  all  those  who  are  grief -stricken, 
and  heavy-laden,  and  beset  to  the  point  of  des- 
peration may  find  rest  and  refuge. 

He  offers  us  the  Haven  of  His  love,  always 
waiting  for  us. 

Are  there  any  who  can  refuse  that  wonder- 
ful invitation? 


Sweeter  As  the  Years  Go  By. 


Mn.CH.tL 


L  Of      Je-eus'  love  that  sought  me  When  I   was  lost  in    sin,  Of  won-droui 

2.  He   trod   in  old  Ju  -  de  -  a   Life's  pathway  long  a  -  go;  The  peo  -  pie 

3.  'Twas  wondrous  love  which  led  Him  For  us  to  suf  fer  loss— To  bear  with- 
in h  h  i   .   i   .  j>  h  h  j   i  v.  3 


grace  that  brought  me  Back  to  His  fold  a  -  gain,  of  heights  and  depths  of 
thronged  a- bout  Him,  His  sav  -  ing  grace  to  know;  He  healed  the  bro  ken- 
out     a  mur-mur  The  an-guish  of   the  cross.  With  saints  re  deemed  in 

'  J.  h  J1  fj-  *  J-  *  * 


mer  -  cy  Far  deep  •  er  than  the  sea,  And  high  -  er  than  the  heav  ens  My 
heart -ed,  And  caused  the  blind  to  see;  And  still  His  great  heart  yearaeth  In 
glo  -  ry,  Let    us    ourvoic-es  raise,  Till  heav'n  and  earth  re  ech- o  With 

A  A      J  ^i^J^i  i    I  r> 


theme  shaB  er  -  er    be:  Sweet -er  as  the  years  go    by, . 
love     for    e  •  veil  me. 

our      Ee  deem  ex's  praise.  Sweet   •   er         as   tbo  years  go    by,  lis 

A-  J  J  J  J     m  ,  ,  0  lM  .  f  f 


■  Qb    „           K      fcj      J.J.                   ■  — 

fr— ; 

! 

Sweet  •  er  as  the  years  go  by; 

sweet   •   er        as      the    years  go  t 

gg£  6   i  1 1  r  r  i 

Rich-er,  full  -  er,  deep  •  er, 

r. 

p  ; 

J 

126 


SWEETER  AS  THE  YEARS  GO  BY  127 
Sweeter  As  the  Years  Go  By. 

Je  •  ios'  love  is  sweet  -  er,   Sweet  -  er    as    the  yean  go  by. 


VII 

SWEETER  AS  THE  YEARS  GO  BY 

Some  one  has  said  that  it  is  love  which  makes 
the  world  go  round. 

How  wonderfully  true  this  statement  is  few 
persons  realize,  who  have  not  to  deal  with  the 
heart-aches  and  soul-bruises  of  humanity. 

We  see  its  applications  emphasized  in  the 
so-called  popular  songs  of  the  day,  where  the 
publishers,  frankly  commercial,  call  always  for 
"sentiment,"  more  sentiment,  not  knowing 
what  it  is,  but  alive  to  the  fact  that  a  song  which 
can  touch  the  heart  strings  is  always  sure  of  a 
big  sale. 

And  the  great  mass  of  the  public,  fighting 
always  for  something  above  and  beyond  the 
day's  work,  are  deceived  by  those  advertised 
songs  of  sentiment,  which,  instead  of  being 
really  inspirational,  are  only  maudlin  and 
mawkish. 

There  is  no  true,  and  sure,  and  enduring 
sentiment  in  the  human  breast  that  is  not  based 

128 


SWEETER  AS  THE  YEARS  GO  BY  129 


on  something  besides  the  world,  and  the  things 
and  creatures  of  the  world. 

I  often  think  that  there  can  be  no  really  true 
and  genuine  love  that  does  not  contain,  first  of 
all,  an  overpowering  love  for,  and  a  complete 
surrender  to  God. 

I  am  not  speaking  from  theories.  I  am 
speaking  out  of  the  depths  of  a  wide  and  varied 
experience  of  human  nature. 

No  song  in  all  of  our  repertoire  emphasizes 
better  this  higher  and  nobler  appeal  of  love 
and  sentiment  than  "Sweeter  as  the  Years  Go 

By." 

It  holds  a  message,  which  is  certain  to  creep 
under  the  hardest  heart,  and  into  the  most  in- 
different soul,  if  the  right  opportunity  is  given 
for  the  reception  of  its  message. 

Men  and  women  are  inherently  good — not 
bad.  They  would  rather  have  righteousness 
than  sin. 

They  would  rather  grasp  that  which  pulls 
them  up  than  that  which  drags  them  down. 

They  would  rather  fix  their  eyes  on  the 
heights  than  on  the  depths. 

I  have  in  mind  a  story,  which  was  told  to  one 
of  our  workers  as  the  result  of  the  singing  of 
this  song,  by  a  well  known  woman  in  one  of  the 
cities  where  we  were  conducting  a  campaign — 


130    SWEETER  AS  THE  YEARS  GO  BY 


a  woman  to  whose  life  the  message  of  the  song 
was  particularly  applicable,  and  who  was  made 
suddenly,  because  of  it,  to  glimpse  the  vision, 
which  for  years  she  had  stumbled  blindly  past. 

But  first  let  me  give  you  the  words  of  the 
song  that  you  may  gather  its  application  in 
the  stories  that  follow. 

Of  Jesus*  love  that  sought  me,  when  I  was  lost  in  sin, 
Of  wondrous  grace  that  brought  me,  back  to  His  fold 
again, 

Of  heights  and  depths  of  mercy,  far  deeper  than  the  sea, 
And  higher  than  the  Heavens,  my  theme  shall  ever  be. 

He  trod  in  old  Judea,  Life's  pathway  long  ago; 
The  people  thronged  about  Him,  His  saving  grace  to 
know. 

He  healed  the  broken  hearted,  and  caused  the  blind  to 

see, 

And  still  His  great  heart  yearneth,  in  love  for  even  me. 

'Twas  wondrous  love  which  led  Him,  for  us  to  suffer  loss, 
To  bear  without  a  murmur,  the  anguish  of  the  cross. 
With  saints  redeemed  in  glory,  let  our  voices  raise 
Till  heaven  and  earth  re-echo,  with  our  Redeemer's 
praise. 

Are  those  not  words  of  great  meaning? 
And  when  we  sing  the  chorus,  over  and  over 
again,  in  response  to  the  magnetic  feeling 
which  runs  through  the  congregation,  and 


SWEETER  AS  THE  YEARS  GO  BY  131 


shows  in  the  softening  of  its  great  swell,  there 
is  the  intensity  of  all  the  finest  and  most  sa- 
cred feelings  of  men  toward  God. 

Sweeter  as  the  years  go  by,  sweeter  as  the  years  go  by, 
Richer,  fuller,  deeper,  Jesus'  love  is  sweeter, 
Sweeter  as  the  years  go  by. 

At  the  close  of  one  of  our  afternoon  services, 
for  women  only,  one  of  the  so-called  society 
leaders  of  the  community  approached  the  plat- 
form, with  tears  on  her  face,  which  she  made 
no  effort  to  conceal. 

"I  want  you  to  pray  for  me,"  she  said,  "I 
have  forgotten  how  to  pray,  myself,  I  know, 
only  that  I  need  help,  which  no  human  hands 
can  give  me — that  my  broken  life  can  only  be 
mended  by  a  power  higher  than  that  of  men." 

She  looked  at  the  workers  in  an  anguish, 
whose  sincerity  could  not  be  mistaken. 

"I  would  like  to  tell  you  my  story,"  she  con- 
tinued. "You  have  probably  heard  others  like 
it  before — of  the  mother  who  worshiped  the 
things  of  the  world  for  her  children,  above  the 
blessing  of  God. 

"It  was  not  until  I  heard  the  words  of  the 
song,  4 Sweeter  as  the  Years  Go  By,'  that  I 
realized  my  life  was  doomed  to  be  more  and 
more  bitter  as  time  passes — because  of  my  own 


132    SWEETER  AS  THE  YEARS  GO  BY 


sin  and  selfishness,  and  because  I  put  God  in 
the  background,  and  the  world  first. 

"I  married  an  ambitious  man,"  she  began, 
"whose  only  thought  was  to  make  a  success  that 
the  world  would  applaud. 

"He  began  to  forge  ahead  in  his  profession, 
that  of  a  lawyer,  and  on  my  part  I  tried  to  ar- 
range our  domestic  affairs  to  keep  pace  with 
him. 

"Instead  of  instilling  into  my  home  and  into 
my  children  the  love  of  God  before  all  other 
things,  I  made  both  my  son  and  daughter  as 
vain,  in  their  youthful  way,  as  I  was. 

"My  daughter,  I  can  see  now,  became  fear- 
fully self-conscious,  and  her  only  ambition  in 
life  was  to  show  off  her  pretty  frock  to  her 
companions  and  to  be  complimented  on  her 
style  and  good  looks. 

"My  boy  degenerated  gradually  into  a  prig, 
and  I  was  actually  proud  of  him,  proud  of  his 
manners,  and  the  way  in  which  he  bowed  when- 
ever a  lady  entered  the  room. 

"I  thought  his  manners  more  important  than 
his  morals. 

"And  worse  than  all,  I  began  to  encourage 
my  husband,  who  before  this,  had  been  a 
strictly  temperate  man,  to  have  wine  in  his 


SWEETER  AS  THE  YEARS  GO  BY  133 


house  for  the  benefit  of  his  fashionable  clients, 
and  even  to  serve  it  on  our  table. 

"I  might  have  known  the  result,  had  I  not 
been  so  blinded  by  the  idols  of  the  world." 

Her  voice  broke  at  this  point,  and  it  was  only 
in  fitful  periods  that  she  was  able  to  complete 
her  narrative. 

I  will  shorten  it  from  the  facts,  which  the 
worker  later  gathered  in  the  community. 

Edgar,  that  boy  who  was  to  be  a  social  suc- 
cess, is  serving  his  time  in  prison.  It  will  be 
years  before  he  will  be  released.  Florence,  the 
beautiful,  wayward  girl  who  kept  the  tongues 
of  the  town  wagging,  has  disappeared.  Her 
mother  wishes,  though,  that  Florence  were  ly- 
ing quietly  in  the  family  plot. 

And  the  father,  who  was  so  brilliant,  who 
made  so  much  money,  is  one  of  the  subjects  of 
discussion  over  the  dinner  tables,  for  there  is 
hardly  a  day  when  he  cannot  be  seen,  stagger- 
ing through  the  streets,  still  handsome,  still 
well  dressed,  but  undeniably  drunk. 

When  the  scandal  of  Edgar's  forgery  of  his 
employer's  name  first  came  out,  the  mother  was 
confident  that  his  father,  the  brilliant  lawyer, 
could  speedily  clear  him. 

But  the  father  did  not  clear  the  son.  On 


l$4t    SWEETER  AS  THE  YEARS  GO  BY 


tHe  day  when  the  trial  was  set,  the  father  was 
too  intoxicated  to  take  charge  of  his  son's  case. 
Another  lawyer  was  hastily  called. 

Edgar  disliked  the  substitute  attorney,  and 
in  full  view  of  the  courtroom,  and  in  the  hear- 
ing of  the  judge,  he  cursed  him,  in  a  fit  of  the 
temper  which  his  mother  had  never  curbed. 
The  judge  in  his  charge  to  the  jury  said  that 
the  young  man  needed  a  lesson.  They  took 
the  hint,  and  gave  the  boy  a  long  sentence. 

You  would  have  thought  that  that  would 
teach  the  mother  her  lesson,  but  it  did  not  seem 
to  do  so.  She  went  on  with  her  entertain- 
ments, and  the  set,  who  were  her  associates, 
went  to  them,  and  Florence  was  allowed  to 
flirt,  and  to  drink,  and  to  smoke,  for  those 
things  were  "fashionable!" 

Pretty  soon  there  was  ugly  gossip  about  the 
girl,  but  her  mother  would  not  listen  to  it. 
Florence,  she  said,  did  no  more  than  any  of  the 
others  of  her  circle. 

She  disappeared  suddenly.  She  has  never 
been  found.  Not  a  word  has  come  from  her, 
not  a  clew  to  her  whereabouts  has  been  dis- 
covered. 

And  at  last  the  mother  began  to  awaken  to 
the  real  cause  of  it  all. 

"I  was  slipping  down  the  road  of  fashion," 


SWEETER  AS  THE  YEARS  GO  BY  135 

she  said.  "Not  only  that,  but  I  had  dragged 
my  husband,  and  my  children  with  me.  My 
husband  had  never  taken  a  drink  in  his  life 
until  I  told  him  that  he  ought  to  have  wine  for 
his  guests  and  to  drink  with  them. 

"I  ought  to  have  known  better  than  to  en- 
courage Edgar  in  thinking  that  money  is  ev- 
erything worth  living  for.  I  ought  to  have 
known  that  no  girl  should  be  allowed  the  things 
in  which  I  encouraged  Florence.  And  my  sin 
has  found  me  out!" 

There  is  not  much  comfort  for  the  poor 
mother  today.  Friends  are  praying  that  her 
husband  will  find  the  strength  of  God  which 
will  stop  him  from  drinking,  and  for  those  two 
unfortunate  children.  For  the  son  there  is 
hope.  The  discipline  of  the  prison  and  the 
influence  of  the  chaplain  there  may  prevail. 
But  for  the  daughter — 

It  all  began  with  the  violation  of  the  First 
Commandment,  when  the  mother  put  aside  the 
one  standard  by  which  any  life  can  be  ruled, 
the  rule  of  God. 

First  she  worshiped  ambition — then  she 
worshiped  "society,"  then  it  was  money,  more 
money,  and  pleasure,  until  every  other  consid- 
eration in  the  world  was  laid  aside,  and  nothing 
mattered  except  following  the  "fashions." 


136    SWEETER  AS  THE  YEARS  GO  BY 


She  said  to  the  worker! — 

4 'It  makes  me  shudder,  now,  when  I  hear  the 
girls,  who  used  to  be  the  friends  of  Florence, 
talking,  laughing,  smoking  cigarettes,  drink- 
ing— and  what  they  talk  about  and  laugh  over. 
It's  the  fashion  for  girls  to  smoke!  It's  the 
fashion  for  them  to  drink,  and  to  drink  enough, 
sometimes,  so  that  they  are  no  longer  mis- 
tresses of  themselves. 

"Oh,  I  can  see,  now  that  it  is  too  late!  A 
girl  who  still  blushes  is  laughed  at.  No  won- 
der my  child  fell.  I  encouraged  her  to  develop 
nothing  but  worldly  appetites,  no  one  can  know 
how  I  suffer — now!" 

What  she  says  is  so  true,  so  pathetically 
true! 

It  was  the  mother  who  had  sinned  first — and 
the  fruits  of  her  sin  were  visited  on  her  through 
those  dearer  to  her  than  herself. 

Her  pathetic  words,  as  she  finished  her  story, 
will  never  be  forgotten  by  the  sympathetic 
auditor,  who  heard  them,  and  who  tried  to 
comfort  the  belated  penitent. 

"It  wasn't  until  the  words  of  that  wonder- 
ful song  penetrated  my  soul,"  she  sobbed,  "that 
I  began  to  picture,  almost  for  the  first  time,  in 
all  of  its  awful  reality,  my  darkened  home,  and 
saddened  life,  as  the  years  go  by. 


SWEETER  AS  THE  YEARS  GO  BY  187 


"Instead  of  a  peaceful,  happy,  contented 
home,  worshiping  God,  we  have  a  desolate 
house  of  bitter  memories. 

"Instead  of  a  son  and  daughter,  serving  the 
Lord  in  every  way  possible,  we  don't  want  to 
mention  our  children — and,  when  we  do,  it  is 
with  tears  and  blistering  heart-aches. 

"Instead  of  a  husband,  devoting  his  life  to 
the  Kingdom,  I  have  the  bitter  consciousness 
that  my  husband  has  become  a  drunkard, 
largely  through  my  own  fault  and  blindness. 

"I  can  see  now  that,  in  my  mad  pursuit  of 
the  idols  of  the  world,  I  have  missed  com- 
pletely that  wonderful,  everlasting,  all-satis- 
fying peace  of  God  which  alone  can  make  life 
sweeter  as  the  years  go  by. 

"Oh,  what  would  I  not  give  to  unroll  the 
past,  and  to  live  my  life  over  again." 

Hers  was  the  cry  of  a  soul  in  agony — the 
cry  of  a  soul  that  is  beginning  to  glimpse  the 
greater  things  that  it  has  lost. 

But  how  often  do  we  hear  just  such  a  cry  re- 
peated all  around  us! 

It  seems  to  me  that  this  particular  song, 
"Sweeter  as  the  Years  Go  By"  has,  above  all, 
a  peculiar  domestic  appeal. 

It  is  suggestive  not  only  of  the  barren  in- 
dividual life,  without  the  spirit  of  God  to 


138    SWEETER  AS  THE  YEARS  GO  BY 


sweeten  the  advancing  years,  but  it  is  even 
more  suggestive  of  the  darkened  home,  and 
the  deserted  hearth-stone,  whose  children  are 
wanderers  from  God,  and  whose  parents,  too 
late,  see  how,  and  where  they  might  have  kept 
them  for  the  Kingdom  and  themselves — if  they 
had  only  had  the  right  vision  at  the  right  time ! 

Sweeter  as  the  years  go  by ! 

Will  your  home  be  sweeter,  and  happier,  and 
mellower,  and  more  God-fearing,  and  more 
God-surrendering  as  the  sands  of  life  drip 
slowly  but  relentlessly  out? 

Will  your  home  be  a  nearer  and  nearer  ap- 
proach to  that  ideal,  which  the  grace  of  God 
promises  men,  and  which  will  alone  make  pos- 
sible the  full  realization  of  that  wonderful 
promise  of  peace  on  Earth? 

Another  story,  connected  with  this  song, 
comes  to  me,  as  the  concluding  illustration  of 
some  of  the  wonderful  results  accomplished  by 
its  message. 

A  bent-shouldered,  grizzled-haired  man  one 
evening  approached  our  workers,  at  the  close 
of  a  more  than  usually  responsive  campaign  in 
a  large  Middle  Western  city. 

He  had  taken  his  stand  for  Christ  and  a 
new  life,  but  it  was  clear  that  he  wished  to  un- 
burden himself  of  his  individual  problems,  and 


SWEETER  AS  THE  YEARS  GO  BY  139 


obtain  a  more  personal  word  of  encouragement 
and  help. 

To  one  of  our  workers  he  was  identified  as  a 
member  of  a  leading  commercial  firm  of  the 
city,  and,  catching  a  sympathetic  eye,  he  told 
his  story,  and  presented  his  problem. 

His  wife  had  died  many  years  before,  leav- 
ing him  with  the  care  and  upbringing  of  their 
only  son,  who,  at  that  time,  was  only  nine. 

He  had  been  buried  in  his  business  cares, 
and  had  sent  the  lad  first  to  boarding  school 
and  then  to  college,  allowing  him  ample  spend- 
ing money,  and  thinking  his  duty  as  a  parent 
was  finished,  when  he  saw  the  boy  for  a  short 
time  during  his  vacations. 

The  result  was  easy  enough  to  see. 

The  young  man  had  drifted  into  a  fast  set 
at  college,  and,  in  an  unusually  wild  escapade, 
had  forged  his  father's  name  to  a  small  check. 

The  parent  had  settled  for  the  check,  but 
had  promptly  taken  his  son  out  of  school,  and, 
without  waiting  to  sift  the  affair  to  the  bot- 
tom had  told  him  he  would  have  to  make  his 
own  way  in  future. 

The  father  thought  his  son's  act  was  a  crime 
and  a  disgrace.  True — but  it  was  more  of  a 
blow  to  his  own  pride  and  vanity. 

For  two  years  now  he  had  not  heard  from 


140    SWEETER  AS  THE  YEARS  GO  BY 


his  boy,  and  he  had  occupied  his  large  home  in 
solitary  state,  trying  to  make  up  by  money 
what  he  could  not  obtain  by  love. 

The  singing  of  the  song,  "Sweeter  as  the 
Years  Go  By,"  for  the  first  time  had  shown 
him  the  emptiness  of  his  home  and  the  empti- 
ness of  his  heart — and  a  reason  for  them  which 
he  had  never  allowed  himself  to  face  before. 

He  had  cast  off  his  boy,  the  son  whom  he 
had  allowed  for  years  to  drift  from  him,  and 
now  in  the  days  of  his  old  age,  with  the  grave 
coming  nearer  and  nearer,  he  realized  that 
there  was  nothing  in  his  life  but  his  business. 

And,  in  its  most  successful  form,  business  is 
always  a  cold,  abstract  proposition. 

The  father  saw  now  that  he,  too,  had  sinned, 
that  his  own  neglect  and  lack  of  sympathy 
were  partly  responsible  for  his  boy's  fault,  and, 
that  while  instantly  ready  to  condemn  his  son, 
he  had  passed  his  own  share  in  that  fault  com- 
pletely by. 

The  next  day  he  engaged  private  detectives 
to  trace  his  son,  and  six  weeks  later  found  the 
young  man,  working  as  a  laborer  in  a  mill  in 
a  near-by  city,  a  bitter  and  discouraged  young- 
ster, at  a  time  when  he  should  be  full  of  the 
flush  and  enthusiasm  of  youth. 

Fortunately  he  had  escaped  the  worst  of  the 


SWEETER  AS  THE  YEARS  GO  BY  141 


evil  habits,  which  might  have  attached  to  him, 
and  fortunately,  too,  he  had  been  made  of  stern 
enough  material  to  work  with  his  hands  rather 
than  become  a  derelict  of  society. 

The  first  advances  of  his  father  were  re- 
pelled with  cold  suspicion. 

The  word,  father,  meant  nothing  to  him  ex- 
cept a  surge  of  bitter  memories. 

Even  after  the  first  interview  with  his  par- 
ent, he  turned  away. 

But  a  short  time  later,  God  touched  his 
heart,  also,  when  an  accident  in  the  mill  threat- 
ened to  make  him  a  cripple  for  life,  and  he  re- 
covered to  find  that  the  careful  nursing,  to 
which  he  owed  the  use  of  his  limbs,  had  been 
obtained  and  paid  for  by  his  parent. 

Father  and  son  were  united — really  for  the 
first  time  in  their  lives,  and  the  young  man  re- 
turned to  the  darkened  home  to  do  his  best 
toward  making  the  years  grow  sweeter  as  they 
rolled  by  in  the  scales  of  his  parent's  life. 

The  song  had  found  both  a  son  and  a  father 
— or  rather  had  reclaimed  them  for  each  other, 
and  for  God. 

Today,  the  father  has  retired  from  active 
business,  and  not  only  has  his  son  taken  his 
place,  but  he  is  rapidly  making  his  influence 
felt  as  one  of  the  most  alert  and  aggressive 


142    SWEETER  AS  THE  YEARS  GO  BY 


champions  of  the  Kingdom  in  the  community. 

"Sweeter  as  the  Years  Go  By"  had  been 
made  true  for  that  home  by  the  grace  of  God 
— and  its  occupants  were  the  first  to  realize 
and  appreciate  that  fact. 

Is  it  true  of  your  home? 


His  Love  is  Far  Better  Than  Gold. 


1.  The  love    of  the  Christ  is    so    pre  -  cioos,  That  no    nor   tal  its 

2.  He    meets  ev  -  'ry  need  with  the    prcm  -  ise,  No  good  tbicgs  from  Hit 

3.  My   heart  ev  -  er  yearns  with  a    long  •  ing,   To    be  -  hold  the  great 


wealth  can  un-fold;  Hia  grace  is  a  store-house  of  rich  -  es  to  me,  Bis 
own  te  with-hold;  Bo  dai  -  I y  I  trust  in  the  Cro  -  ci  -  fied  One,  His 
joy    of  my  soul,  For  •  ev  -  er  to  dwell  in  the  presence    of  Him,  Whose- 


bet  •  ter  than  gold,.   Its    full       -       ness  can  nev  -  tt  be 

tax,  Uz      boHsr  than  (old,  IU      /uU-mm  oad  ■ 


144    HIS  LOVE  IS  BETTER  THAN  GOLD 


Hli  Lore  Is  Far  Better  Than  Gold. 


VIII 


HIS  LOVE  IS  FAR  BETTER  THAN  GOLD 

The  love  of  the  Christ  is  so  precious, 
That  no  mortal  its  wealth  can  unfold; 

His  grace  is  a  storehouse  of  riches  to  me, 
His  love  is  far  better  than  gold. 

There  is  only  the  difference  of  a  letter  be- 
tween Gold  and  God — and  there  may  be  the 
difference  of  eternity. 

Gold  is  the  background  of  the  present  narra- 
tive. But  it  is  not  a  story  of  the  power  of 
Gold.    It  is  a  story  of  the  power  beyond  gold. 

It  is  the  story  of  how  Thomas  Bailey  lost  his 
millions  at  sixty — and  at  seventy  won  them 
back,  and  with  them  that  which  his  millions 
could  not  buy. 

What  he  had  failed  to  purchase  with  one  of 
the  biggest  bank  balances  in  Chicago  he  pur- 
chased with  a  song  at  a  little  wayside  church. 

That  which  he  had  been  unable  to  buy  as  a 
millionaire  was  given  to  him  as  a  tramp — for 
the  asking. 

145 


14(5    HIS  LOVE  IS  BETTER  THAN  GOLD 


It  is  a  story  you  may  find  it  difficult  to  ex- 
plain. God  can  not  be  explained.  He  can 
only  be  accepted  as  a  fact  above  and  beyond 
us.  We  can  accept  him  with  our  faith — but 
we  cannot  explain  him  by  our  analysis,  or  the 
methods  by  which  He  chooses  to  paint  those 
life-studies  that  He  exhibits  to  our  view. 

We  see  Thomas  Bailey,  the  mountain  boy, 
the  millionaire,  the  tramp,  and  again  the  mil- 
lionaire, and  we  may  try  to  dissect  him  by  psy- 
chology— only  to  find  that  psychology  is  to- 
tally inadequate. 

For  the  case  of  Thomas  Bailey  is  beyond 
psychology. 

Incidentally,  Thomas  Bailey  is  not  his  true 
name,  nor  Chicago  his  correct  address.  There 
are  too  many  thousands  who  know  the  real 
man — or  of  him. 

And  this  is  an  intimate  history. 

When  Thomas  Bailey  was  sixteen  years  old 
he  had  sixteen  pennies  in  the  pockets  of  his 
ragged  jeans,  a  birthday  gift  from  his  mother. 
She  had  saved  them,  one  by  one,  from  the 
scanty  pittance  which  had  passed  through  her 
hands  in  the  whole  course  of  that  year. 

The  Baileys  lived  on  a  rocky  little  farm,  far 
up  in  the  Ozark  mountains.  They  had  a  few 
hogs  and  some  hens,  and  when  Richard  Bailey 


HIS  LOVE  IS  BETTER  THAN  GOLD  147 


stayed  sober  long  enough  to  do  the  work,  they 
had  a  meager  field  of  corn  and  potatoes. 

If  the  boy  Thomas  had  not  learned  to  shoot 
as  soon  as  his  arms  were  strong  enough  to  lift 
a  gun,  the  iron  pot  which  hung  on  the  crane 
over  the  open  fire  would  seldom  have  had  a 
bit  of  meat  in  it. 

The  one  rough  room  of  the  log  cabin,  and 
the  coarse  food,  and  the  insufficient  clothing 
were  things  to  which  Thomas  had  been  accus- 
tomed all  his  life,  but  to  which  he  had  never 
grown  reconciled. 

Listening  greedily  to  the  stories,  which 
Grandpop  McNeil  could  sometimes  be  coaxed 
to  tell,  the  silent,  sullen  lad  would  glimpse  a 
world  in  which  life  was  different,  and  he  would 
clench  his  hard  fist,  and  silently  vow  that  some 
day  he  would  go  out  and  make  it  his  own. 

The  one  thing  necessary  for  that  world  was 
the  possession  of  gold.  Grandpop  never  tired 
of  stating  this  fact. 

For  the  lack  of  gold  he  had  been  obliged  to 
come  back  to  the  mountains,  where  his  father's 
cabin  stood  untenanted,  to  spend  the  end  of  his 
days  in  the  dull  monotony,  which  sometimes 
seemed  to  make  of  him  a  mouthing  idiot. 

For  the  lack  of  gold,  even  in  that  fascinating 
world  beyond  the  mountains,  he  had  been 


148    HIS  LOVE  IS  BETTER  THAN  GOLD 


obliged  to  forego  many  pleasures,  pleasures 
for  which  he  still  longed,  and  the  memory  of 
which,  now  forever  beyond  his  reach,  would 
bring  on  one  of  his  famous  "cussin'  spells,,,  to 
which  young  Thomas  would  listen  with  a  si- 
lent, grim  amusement  as  unlike  any  boyish 
emotion  as  could  be  imagined. 

And  now,  with  the  sixteen  pennies,  and 
with  a  "two  bit  piece,"  the  accumulation  of 
years,  and  with  the  additional  asset  of  six  rac- 
coon skins,  surreptitiously  trapped  and  hidden 
from  his  father's  rapacity,  Thomas  determined 
on  taking  the  step,  to  which  all  his  dreaming, 
all  his  rebellion  at  fate,  all  his  listening  to 
Grandpop  McNeil,  had  been  drawing  him. 

"Mom!"  he  drawled.  "Reckon  I'll  go 
down  t'  th'  Settlement  fer  a  spell!" 

His  mother,  spinning  before  the  door,  was 
silent  a  long  time. 

Then  she  spoke. 

"I'm  right  sorry  I  gin  ye  th'  gift,"  she  said, 
somberly.  "Them  as  goes  thar  don't  never 
come  back." 

Thomas  had  heard  that  many  times  before, 
and  he  peered,  with  renewed  interest,  down 
the  steep,  rough  trail  which  dipped  away  al- 
most before  their  door.  Fifty  miles,  it  was, 
to  the  Settlement,  as  the  mountaineers  called 


HIS  LOVE  IS  BETTER  THAN  GOLD  149 


the  little  town,  to  which  their  scanty  produce 
went,  once  a  month,  by  mule  team. 

The  team  was  due  to  leave  tomorrow  morn- 
ing. One  man  would  take  it — almost  the  only 
one  who  ever  did.  Many  a  family  lived  there 
in  the  hills,  no  member  of  which  had  ever  been 
"down  yon"  for  generations. 

Young  Thomas  was  not  excited  at  the  pros- 
pect of  this  wonderful  thing  happening  to  him. 
He  shut  his  stern  young  mouth  tight  and 
thought  of  only  one  thing:  the  gold  which  he 
must  get,  which  he  must  keep,  and  which  he 
must  keep  on  getting — in  that  world  where  it 
was  king. 

In  this  wise  did  Thomas  Bailey,  the  great 
financier,  begin  his  career.  The  road  before 
him  was  long,  and  the  difficulties  enormous, 
but  he  had  never  faltered.  He  had  never 
paused  to  make  a  friend  or  to  view  a  flower, 
or  to  read  a  book,  or  to  extend  a  hand  of  help, 
or  a  look  of  sympathy,  or  a  penny  of  assist- 
ance to  any  human  being. 

The  only  kiss  his  lips  had  ever  given  was  the 
rapturous  one  with  which  he  saluted  his  first 
piece  of  gold,  for  which  he  had  exchanged  the 
fruit  of  his  year's  heavy,  unskilled  labor  in  the 
little  town  at  the  foot  of  the  Ozark  Mountains. 

In  a  year  or  two  he  had  more  gold,  hidden 


150    HIS  LOVE  IS  BETTER  THAN  GOLD 


away  in  his  ragged  clothes,  and  he  had  learned 
the  further  lesson  that  the  man  who  can  pay 
cash  can  always  outbid  and  underbuy  the  other 
fellow. 

On  that  knowledge  he  had  reared  the  edifice 
which  had  seated  him,  on  his  sixtieth  birthday, 
in  a  small,  plain  office  in  a  tall,  grim  building 
on  State  Street  in  Chicago,  from  which  he  con- 
trolled the  destinies  of  more  people,  more  ruth- 
lessly and  more  autocratically  than  many  a 
small  potentate,  whose  kingdom  has  a  well 
known  place  on  the  map  of  Europe. 

Thomas  Bailey  at  sixty  still  had  the  frugal 
habits  of  his  youth.  His  personal  expendi- 
tures were  exceeded,  many  times,  by  that  of 
his  bookkeeper.  He  knew  nothing  of  music 
or  of  any  other  art,  he  had  never  been  inside  of 
a  church,  he  had  no  library,  he  owned  just  three 
suits  of  clothes,  he  did  not  drink  even  coffee. 

His  life,  and  his  love,  his  amusement  and  his 
occupation  for  every  waking  hour  was  his  pur- 
suit of  gold.  Of  course,  he  had  long  since 
ceased  to  hoard  the  metal,  itself. 

But  all  his  stocks  and  bonds,  all  the  securi- 
ties which  lay  in  his  safe  deposit  vaults,  every 
dollar  invested  in  the  thousand  and  one  busi- 
nesses which  had  yielded  him  profit — all  these 
things,  stood  to  him  for  just  so  much  of  that 


HIS  LOVE  IS  BETTER  THAN  GOLD  151 


priceless  thing,  for  which  he  had  bartered  his 
youth,  sacrificed,  starved  and  pinched  until  it 
had  become  the  blood  in  his  veins. 

It  was  even  more  than  that  thin,  cold  fluid 
which  hardly  warmed  his  lean,  shrunken  body 
— it  was  a  burning,  roaring  spirit  which  raged 
through  his  mind  and  soul,  and  blotted  out  his 
heart. 

On  this  particular  day  Thomas  Bailey,  in 
his  shiny,  worn  suit  of  clothes,  with  his  wrin- 
kled hands,  laid  out  along  the  arms  of  his  of- 
fice chair,  sat  inert,  and  his  office  force,  not 
daring  to  knock  at  his  door,  wandered  uneasily 
about,  whispering  uneasily  at  the  astounding 
story,  which  the  tape  was  reeling  off. 

Finally,  the  head  clerk,  almost  as  old  as 
Bailey,  himself,  and  amazingly  like  the  em- 
ployer for  whom  he  had  worked  thirty  years, 
decided  to  brave  his  master's  quick  rage.  He 
softly  opened  the  door,  and  went  in.  Bailey 
raised  his  dull  eyes. 

"What  is  it?"  he  snapped,  in  one  word,  just 
as  he  always  did.  The  head  clerk  murmured 
that  he  thought  he  had  been  rung  for,  and 
backed  out,  a  reassured  grin  on  his  withered 
old  face. 

The  office  force  grinned,  too.  Evidently 
the  old  man  knew  what  he  was  about.  Prob- 


152    HIS  LOVE  IS  BETTER  THAN  GOLD 


ably  this  sudden  dropping  of  stocks  was  but  a 
trick  of  the  wily  old  fox.  There  would  be 
pickings,  after  the  slaughter  was  over. 

The  office  force  had  been  trained  not  to 
smile,  but  a  perceptible  air  of  content  was  re- 
stored to  it,  while  excited  messengers  from 
other  firms  dashed  in  and  out,  trying  to  find 
out  what  was  really  happening. 

Old  Bailey  in  his  quiet  office  was  almost  ma- 
jestically serene. 

He  glanced  at  the  winding  tape  in  the  cor- 
ner, but  he  did  not  rise  to  look.  It  was  a  cer- 
tain test  of  will  power  he  had  contrived  for  his 
own  satisfaction,  a  test  of  his  power  over  him- 
self, and  over  those,  who  owed  almost  life  to 
him.  He  was  the  master — the  tape  was  his 
slave.  He  would  prove  it.  He  had  made  his 
plans,  he,  who  must  be  obeyed,  and  he  had 
given  his  orders.    That  was  sufficient. 

They  would  be  followed,  as  he  had  issued 
them.  There  were  plenty  who  would  like  to, 
but  none,  who  would  dare,  to  vary  from  them 
by  so  much  as  a  hair's  breadth.  Was  not  his 
word  absolute — his  decision  final? 

At  three  o'clock  his  office  force  were  look- 
ing more  serious.  The  old  man  had  not  gone 
out  to  lunch  that  day.  That  was  usual,  they 
knew,  when  something  big  was  about  to  break. 


HIS  LOVE  IS  BETTER  THAN  GOLD  153 


So  nothing  was  said  to  the  silent  figure  who 
stalked  past  them  at  four  o'clock. 

The  headlines  in  the  evening  papers  awoke 
him  from  the  only  day  dream  of  his  life;  awoke 
him  to  screaming,  cursing,  furious  rage ;  awoke 
him,  too  late. 

Bailey  might  have  saved  something  of  that 
long  hoarded  gold,  if  he  had  continued  to  be 
the  cool,  level-headed  man,  who  had  piled  up 
so  much  of  it,  but  from  the  moment  that  he 
aroused  himself,  and  realized  how  he  had  been 
betrayed,  he  was  little  better  than  a  madman. 

He  had  deliberately  sat  through  a  whole 
day,  and  not  once  looked  at  the  thin  strip  of 
paper,  by  whose  unwinding  he  had  literally 
lived  since  his  twenty-fifth  year. 

He,  the  great  Thomas  Bailey,  had  been 
tricked,  by  those,  who  at  any  other  time  would 
not  have  dared  to  lift  a  finger  without  his  bid- 
ding.   And  he  had  suffered  it. 

I  am  inclined  to  think  that  he  was  losing  his 
mind  before  he  lost  his  fortune — the  madness 
of  power,  the  intoxication  of  gold. 

But  I  am  told,  that,  incredible  as  it  may 
seem,  two  other  instances  almost  exactly  like 
it,  have  been  chronicled  in  the  records  of  Wall 
Street. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  a  large  part  of  this  nar- 


154     HIS  LOVE  IS  BETTER  THAN  GOLD 


rative  was  given  to  me  by  one  of  the  financial 
leaders  of  the  United  States — a  man  who  has 
spent  over  fifty  years  in  the  money  markets 
of  America. 

It  took  only  six  months  for  Thomas  Bailey 
to  travel  from  that  room  of  power  on  State 
Street,  to  a  fourth  rate  boarding  house,  whose 
landlady  put  him  out,  and  held  his  trunk  for 
debt. 

Several  times,  after  that,  as  he  stumbled 
from  town  to  town,  he  was  even  arrested. 
Sometimes  they  thought  he  was  drunk,  and 
sometimes  they  considered  him  crazy,  and  once 
he  was  taken  for  a  drug  fiend,  and  a  kind 
hearted  woman  put  him  in  an  institution  for  a 
"cure." 

He  escaped  from  that  place,  a  beggar  now, 
moving  on  and  on.  He  could  not  have  told 
where  his  feet  were  taking  him,  but  afterward 
he  traced  that  trail  with  wonder  and  awe.  As 
straight  as  the  crow  flies,  he  was  making  for 
the  Ozarks. 

But  all  that  time,  a  period  of  over  two  years, 
while  he  alternately  froze  with  the  winter,  and 
burned  with  the  summer,  and  lost  all  remem- 
brance of  that  old  Thomas  Bailey,  who  had 
ruled  State  Street,  his  soul  was  living  through 


HIS  LOVE  IS  BETTER  THAN  GOLD  155 


a  great  battle,  flashes  from  which  sometimes 
penetrated  to  his  worn-out  brain. 

Once  he  saw  a  little  gold  ring  lying  by  a 
roadside,  and  with  a  savage  gesture,  more  like 
his  former  self  than  anything  he  had  done  for 
months,  he  set  his  heel  upon  it.  He  got  into 
the  habit  of  standing  before  jewelers'  win- 
dows, and  sometimes  he  moved  hastily  away, 
aware  that  he  had  been  shaking  his  trembling 
fist  at  them. 

Bailey  walked,  one  day,  over  a  bridge  which 
was  familiar  to  him.  Eads  had  not  built  his 
great  span  across  the  Mississippi  when  the  boy 
Thomas  had  first  gone  to  St.  Louis  to  begin  his 
pursuit  of  gold,  but  Bailey,  the  financier,  had 
often  seen  it  as  he  passed  through  the  city,  on 
his  occasional  trips  to  the  western  cities  where 
some  of  his  great  enterprises  had  their  head- 
quarters. 

It  was  morning,  radiant  and  sweet,  as  early 
May  often  was  in  the  Mississippi  Valley. 
Bailey  lingered  on  the  bridge  until  a  police- 
man moved  him  on.  But  the  old  man  stayed 
the  officer  with  just  the  slightest  shadow  of  the 
authority,  which  had  been  his  for  so  long. 

"Do  not  disturb  me,"  he  said,  gently.  "I 
want  to  think.    I  have  just  found  out  some- 


156    HIS  LOVE  IS  BETTER  THAN  GOLD 


thing."  Confidentially,  he  took  the  wondering 
policeman  by  the  lapel  of  his  coat. 

"Gold — "  he  said  impressively,  "gold  is  not 
the  most  precious  thing  in  the  world.  There 
is  something  else  much  greater  and  more  valu- 
able, but  I  have  forgotten  what  it  is.  Could 
you  help  me  to  remember,  sir?" 

St.  Louis  has  an  excellent  public  insane 
asylum,  and  there  Thomas  Bailey  spent  the 
next  few  months.  The  policeman  took  him 
there  at  once.  He  seemed  a  quiet  inoffensive 
enough  creature.  The  keepers  soon  grew  into 
the  habit  of  thinking  that  he  was  almost  a  senile 
idiot,  and  they  did  not  think  it  necessary  to 
watch  him  closely. 

This  was  how  he  found  himself,  one  quiet, 
twilight  hour,  walking  down  a  suburban 
street.  He  did  not  remember  to  have  gone 
out  of  the  asylum  gate  which  he  had  been  for- 
bidden to  pass.  But  he  must  have  done  so — 
he  must  have  been  walking  for  an  hour  or  two. 

There  was  an  open  space  in  the  distance, 
with  a  large  tent  on  it.  There  were  lights  in 
it,  and  people  going  in,  and  sounds  of  mu- 
sic. 

He  went  on.  He  paused  before  one  of  the 
entrances.  A  young  man  looked  at  him, 
stepped  forward,  and  took  him  by  the  arm. 


HIS  LOVE  IS  BETTER  THAN  GOLD  157 


He  found  himself  in  a  seat,  one  of  thousands, 
who  were  singing. 

There  was  a  choir  on  a  raised  platform.  It 
was  a  gospel  tent.  Somebody  handed  him  a 
song  book,  and  invited  him  to  sing  with  the 
others. 

He  had  never  sung  a  note  in  his  life.  The 
great,  swelling  volume  of  sound,  which  pressed 
around  him,  struck  through  him  with  an  ex- 
quisite delight  that  was  almost  pain. 

He  trembled  so  that  he  could  no  longer  hold 
his  book.  The  woman  who  sat  beside  him 
looked  keenly  at  him,  and  then  with  swift  ten- 
derness, she  laid  a  hand  on  his  shoulder,  trem- 
bling a  little  herself,  at  the  revelations  made 
by  that  quivering  old  face,  on  which  the  lines 
of  greed  were  slowly  breaking. 

The  speaker  on  the  platform  was  talking. 
Suddenly  his  interest  quickened,  and  he  bent 
eagerly  forward.  The  man  was  talking  about 
the  one  thing  which  Thomas  Bailey  knew  all 
about.  He  was  talking  about  gold,  and  he 
was  asking,  and  answering  that  question, 
which  he  had  been  trying  to  answer  now  for 
months,  and  which  had  been  always  eluding 
him. 

And  he  was  saying  things  which  Thomas 
Bailey's  soul  had  been  saying  to  him,  over  and 


158    HIS  LOVE  IS  BETTER  THAN  GOLD 


over  again,  while  his  weary  feet  had  dragged 
his  body  toward  his  boyhood  home. 

Bailey  trembled  so,  now,  that  the  woman 
beside  him  looked  anxiously  at  the  usher,  who 
had  posted  himself  at  the  end  of  the  row  of 
seats. 

Something,  at  once  terrible  and  beautiful, 
was  happening.  They  feared  to  interfere 
with  it. 

The  wreck  of  the  old  Thomas  Bailey  was 
wrestling  with  God,  and  they  wondered 
whether  the  man's  frail  body  would  endure  the 
struggle,  which  shook  him  from  head  to  foot. 

They  were  going  to  sing  again.  The 
woman  offered  Bailey  the  book,  but  he  could 
not  take  it.  She  moved  a  little  nearer,  so  that 
her  lips  were  close  to  his  ear,  and  her  clear, 
piercing  soprano  gave  him  every  word  of  the 
song,  as  the  great  audience  boomed  it  out. 

The  love  of  the  Christ  is  so  precious, 
That  no  mortal  its  wealth  can  unfold; 
His  grace  is  a  storehouse  of  riches  to  me, 
His  love  is  far  better  than  gold. 

He  meets  every  need  with  the  promise 
No  good  things  from  His  own  to  withhold. 
So  daily  I  trust  in  the  Crucified  One, 
His  love  is  far  better  than  gold. 


HIS  LOVE  IS  BETTER  THAN  GOLD  159 


My  heart  ever  yearns  with  a  longing 
To  behold  the  great  joy  of  my  soul; 
Forever  to  dwell  in  the  presence  of  Him, 
Whose  love  is  far  better  than  gold. 

The  woman  was  crying  by  that  time.  When 
an  old  man  takes  his  gray  hair  in  his  trembling 
hands,  and  cries  out  the  cry  of  the  new-born,  it 
is  something  to  stop  the  heart  for  a  beat  or  two. 

The  usher  forced  his  way  to  them,  and  came 
to  lay  strong  comforting  hands  on  the  sobbing 
phantom  of  a  man  in  the  seat. 

Again  the  long  drawn  notes  of  the  singers 
rang  out,  with  the  deep  chanting  of  the  basses 
and  contraltos : 

"His  1-o-v-e  (is  far  better) 

is  far  better  than  g-o-l-d  (better  than  gold)  ; 
Its  f-u-l-l-(ness  can  never)  ness 

can  never  be  told  (never  be  told). 
It  m-a-k-e-s  (me  an  heir) 

me  an  heir  to  the  mansions  above, 
For  His  1-o-v-e- (is  far  better) 
is  far  better  than  gold." 

All  the  tears  which  Thomas  Bailey  had 
never  shed,  all  the  love  he  had  never  felt,  all 
the  remorse  he  had  beaten  from  him,  all  his 
terror  of  the  God  he  had  foresworn  came  upon 
him  in  a  rush. 


160    HIS  LOVE  IS  BETTER  THAN  GOLD 


People  went  out,  weeping,  from  the  sight. 
Other  people  came  to  him.  The  woman  knelt 
beside  him  pouring  out  the  pity  and  the 
exaltation  of  her  heart  in  prayer.  And  at  last, 
staggering,  he  was  taken  to  a  house,  where 
they  put  him  to  bed,  and  for  a  week  fought  to 
keep  his  heart  from  beating  its  way  out  of  its 
frame,  more  bruised  and  battered  now  by  its 
marvelous  rebirth  than  by  all  its  years  of  life. 

In  time  they  won.  In  time  a  quavering' 
voice  thanked  them,  and  a  timid  hand,  un- 
accustomed to  such  contact,  pressed  itself  into 
their  reassuring  palms. 

This  is  the  true  story  of  how  Thomas  Bailey, 
at  sixty,  became  tramp,  and  at  seventy,  became 
again  a  rich  man.  With  his  spiritual  re-birth, 
his  mind  seemed  to  regain  almost  at  once  its 
old-time  power. 

As  soon  as  his  mental  faculties,  with  all  their 
store  of  experience  and  commercial  shrewd- 
ness, began  to  find  bodily  strength  behind 
them,  they  set  themselves,  even  more  passion- 
ately than  before,  to  the  task  of  gaining  gold. 

But  it  was  not  for  the  sake  of  remaking  the 
fortune  he  had  lost.  With  his  new  birth  had 
come  a  new  vision  of  life  and  its  obligations. 
He  could  not,  of  course,  directly  undo  the 
misery  and  havoc  he  had  wrought  in  his  previ- 


HIS  LOVE  IS  BETTER  THAN  GOLD  161 


ous  career,  but  he  could  atone  in  part  for  them. 
He  could  use  the  power  of  gold — not  for  self 
— but  for  service. 

Thomas  Bailey  figures  that  he  can  have,  at 
the  best,  only  ten  more  working  years.  At 
eighty,  he  says,  he  must  have  done  his  part  to 
pay  off  at  least  part  of  his  debt  to  society.  He 
will  not  die  before  that  time — he  maintains  God 
will  not  let  him.  For  the  debt  must  be  paid 
first. 

At  times  the  clerks  in  his  office  can  hear  him 
singing  a  certain  song  at  his  desk — 

"For  His  love  is  more  precious  than  gold!" 

The  thin,  old  voice  quavers  out  the  words, 
and  they  glance  at  each  other,  a  little  dubi- 
ously. 

It  is  not  often  that  clerks  in  a  commercial 
house  are  called  upon  to  work  for  a  man  who 
turns  over  every  dollar  of  his  profits  to  the  pur- 
poses of  God — and  who  takes  a  glorified  pleas- 
ure in  doing  so. 

But  then  it  is  not  often  that  a  man  at  seventy 
is  born  again. 


Mother's  Prayers  Have  Followed  Me. 

B.  D.  i 


I  grieved  my  Lord  from  day  to  day,    I  scorned  His  love  so  full  and 

2.  O'erdes-ert  wild,  o'er  moun-tain  high,  A  wan-der  -  er  I  chose  to 

3.  He  turned  my  dark  -  ness  in  -  to  light,  This  bless-ed  Christ  of  Cal  -  va- 

±1 


free,  And  tho'  I  wan  -  dered  far  a  -  way,  Mv  motb-er's 
be;  A  wretch  •  ed  soul,  con-demned  to  die,  Still  moth  er's 
ryl     I'D    praise  His  name   both  day    and  night,  That  moth-er's 


pray're  have  fol- lowed    me.    I'm   com  -  ing  home,  I'm  com -tog 

^— g- 


1  '       t  t 

home,    To    Hve    my  wast  -  ed     life    a  •  new,    For  moth-er's 


pray're  have  fol-lowed  e 

*  I       1  *:  *  i:  *  1  f- 11 

e,  Have  fol-lowed  me    the  whole  world  through. 

»'      f      f      t        t'        f     *.       ,       |     g.  U 

162 


IX 


MY  MOTHER'S  PRAYERS  HAVE  FOLLOWED  ME 

I  grieved,  my  Lord,  from  day  to  day, 
I  scorned  his  love  so  full  and  free, 

And  tho'  I  wandered  far  away, 

My  mother's  prayers  have  followed  me. 

This  is  the  experience  of  a  modern  prodigal 
— who  came  back. 

It  is  also  the  story  of  a  mother  and  her  boy. 

But,  above  all,  it  is  the  story  of  a  mother's 
prayers,  as  first  she  gave  it  to  me,  and  then  her 
son. 

You  may  not  believe  in  prayer.  You  may 
not  believe  that  prayer  is  answered.  Maybe, 
you  have  not  learned  how  to  pray. 

This  is  the  record  of  prayers  that  were  of- 
fered apparently  in  vain,  that  fell  back,  month 
after  month,  upon  the  lips  that  uttered  them, 
until  at  the  last — but  let  me  give  you  the  curi- 
ous facts  in  the  life  of  Jack  Xorton,  the  prodi- 
gal, in  the  order  in  which  they  led  up  to  the 
great  crisis  of  his  career. 

Jack  was  a  fairly  decent  sort  of  a  young  fel- 

163 


164  MOTHER'S  PRAYERS 


low,  for  the  only  son  of  fond  and  doting  par- 
ents, who  expected  him  to  go  through  life  on 
ball  bearings. 

Following  his  graduation  from  the  local 
High  School,  they  sent  him,  after  many  con- 
sultations and  arguments  to  one  of  the  largest 
Eastern  colleges. 

It  wasn't  long  before  Jack  began  picking 
up  more  things  on  the  side  than  he  found  in 
the  college  curriculum.  He  was  just  a  big, 
overgrown,  spoiled  boy,  and  he  looked  on  the 
new  world  around  him  as  a  boy — and  not  as  a 
man. 

One  of  the  closest  friends  that  he  found  at 
the  university  was  a  youth  of  about  his  own 
age,  by  the  name  of  Dick  Randolph.  But 
there  the  resemblance  ceased.  Dick's  father 
owned  three  or  four  hundred  miles  of  railroads, 
and  Dick  tried  to  make  the  world  believe  that 
he  was  the  original  Kid  Broadway. 

Under  his  supervision  Jack  became  more  fa- 
miliar with  poker  chips,  and  cocktails,  and  mu- 
sical comedy  actresses  than  with  Greek  and 
Latin  verbs,  or  Trigonometry.  And  his  edu- 
cation progressed  amazingly  along  those  lines. 

When  he  finally  returned  to  Homeburg, 
with  his  sheepskin  in  his  pocket,  and  a  cigarette 
in  the  corner  of  his  mouth,  he  was  already  be- 


MOTHER'S  PRAYERS  165 


ginning  to  feel  a  man  of  the  world,  and  had  his 
future  painted  in  bright  and  glowing  colors. 

His  father's  ambition  had  been  to  add  the 
words,  "And  Son"  to  the  partnership  sign  over 
at  the  paint  factory  that  he  had  started  forty 
years  ago  in  one  room,  and  he  had  confidently 
expected  Jack  to  become  one  of  the  solid  busi- 
ness men  of  the  community. 

The  boy's  family,  and  a  girl  in  the  next 
block,  by  the  name  of  Mary  Bradford,  who 
had  had  Jack's  picture  on  the  bureau  in  her 
bed  room  ever  since  the  summer  before  he 
went  away  to  college,  had  the  same  ideas  about 
his  business  career.  But  he  promptly  showed 
them  all  that  he  had  other  plans. 

"This  is  no  place  for  me,"  he  confided  to  his 
father.  "I'm  going  to  New  York,  where  a 
man  of  my  talents  has  a  proper  chance.  I 
think  I'll  be  an  architect.  So  if  you'll  let  me 
have  what  is  coming  to  me  I'll  use  it  to  start 
at  my  new  career.  Take  it  from  me — before 
long  you  won't  know  your  son!" 

His  father  glanced  at  Jack's  college-boy  hat, 
and  rainbow  shirt,  and  white  trousers,  flirting 
with  a  lavender  expanse  of  silk  socks,  and 
shook  his  head,  but  he  finally  gave  in  and  drew 
a  check  for  ten  thousand  to  start  his  son  and 
heir  in  the  battle  with  the  world. 


166  MOTHER'S  PRAYERS 


"I  won't  give  you  any  advice,"  he  said 
grimly,  "but  when  the  money  is  gone,  you 
won't  get  any  more.  That's  all  I  can  say  to 
you — but  it  ought  to  be  enough!" 

Even  a  fond  and  doting  parent  sometimes 
has  moments  of  sanity — generally  when  it  is 
too  late. 

"I  won't  need  any  more,"  answered  Jack 
confidently. 

"I  didn't  mean  advice,"  said  his  father 
curtly,  "I  mean  money!" 

Mary  Bradford  tried  to  smile  when  she 
heard  of  Jack's  plans,  but  it  wasn't  much  of  a 
success,  and  she  locked  herself  in  her  room,  and 
cried  herself  to  sleep.  She  had  a  woman's  in- 
tuitions of  the  probable  result. 

His  mother  stole  upstairs  to  her  own  pri- 
vate little  nook,  and  when  she  came  down  she 
timidly  held  out  a  frayed,  old  fashioned  Bible, 
with  a  book-mark  that  she  had  embroidered 
when  she  was  a  girl. 

"It  has  been  mine  since  I  was  a  child,"  she 
said.  "When  you  read  it,  remember  your 
mother  at  home  is  praying  that  her  boy  will 
make  the  best,  and  bravest,  and  biggest  man  in 
the  whole  world." 

Jack  smiled  patronizingly.  "She  is  a  bit 
out  of  date,"  he  said  to  himself,  "and  hasn't 


MOTHER'S  PRAYERS 


167 


had  the  chance  to  see  life  that  I  have,  and  know 
that  people  who  amount  to  anything  have  out- 
grown that  nonsense — but  I  may  as  well  hu- 
mor her." 

So  he  slipped  the  Bible  into  the  bottom  of  his 
trunk,  where  it  would  be  out  of  sight,  waved 
his  hand  to  the  folks  on  the  porch,  and  swung 
out  of  the  front  gate. 

At  last  he  was  on  his  way  to  the  great  city, 
where  a  man  with  brains  could  find  a  career 
worthy  of  his  greatness. 

He  didn't  know  that  New  York  was  a  good 
deal  like  Homeburg,  except  in  size,  and  that 
the  only  difference  was  that  it  had  more  va- 
rieties of  human  nature,  and  failure,  and  suc- 
cess, and  more  opportunities  for  getting  the 
best,  or  the  worst  out  of  a  man. 

His  old  college  chum,  Dick  Randolph,  se- 
cured him  a  berth  in  an  architect's  office,  but 
Jack  was  more  interested  in  that  part  of  the 
day  after  five  o'clock  in  the  afternoon. 

He  fell  into  the  habit  of  telling  those  out- 
side the  office  that  he  was  only  working  to 
please  his  father  out  in  Indiana,  who  owned 
half  a  dozen  townships,  but  had  old-fashioned 
ideas. 

Dick  Randolph  prided  himself  that  he  was 
one  of  the  star  patrons  of  Broadway,  and, 


168  MOTHER'S  PRAYERS 


through  his  introductions,  Jack  found  himself 
generously  received  in  a  certain  type  of  restau- 
rants and  cafes.  But  he  was  not  deserving 
them  as  much  as  he  was  himself.  As  long  as 
he  had  money  to  pay  his  way,  they  would  make 
that  way  alluring  to  him.  That  is  the  custom 
of  Broadway,  and  Jack,  not  being  wise  in  the 
ways  of  the  world,  saw  the  easy  things  of  life 
being  handed  to  him  simply  by  stretching  out 
his  hand  for  them. 

It  was  about  this  time  that  his  scheme  of  life 
was  further  complicated,  when  he  met  a  golden- 
haired,  soulful-eyed  girl  in  a  Forty-second 
Street  musical  comedy,  called  Flossy  Brandon. 
Her  hair  and  her  soulful  eyes  were  both  arti- 
ficial, except  that  they  were  manufactured  by 
different  processes,  but  Jack  didn't  know  it. 

Before  he  realized  it  he  was  hopelessly, 
blindly  infatuated. 

Letters  continued  to  come  to  him  regularly 
with  the  Homeburg  post  mark,  although  he 
seldom  bothered  to  answer  them  now.  He 
didn't  have  to.  A  mother  has  an  extra  sense 
— where  her  boy  is  concerned.  God  gave  her 
an  especial  wireless  telegraphy  for  her  own  ex- 
clusive use. 

His  mother  added  always  to  her  letters  the 
words,  "You  will  know  that  I  am  praying  for 


MOTHER'S  PRAYERS  169 


you,  every  night  at  eight  o'clock,  winter  or 
summer."  She  never  forgot  to  write  that 
postscript.    It  was  a  part  of  her  life. 

Broadway  was  a  closed  book  to  her,  but  she 
didn't  need  to  open  it.  She  had  a  mother's 
conviction  that  the  man  out  in  the  world,  once 
the  boy  at  her  knees,  and  still  the  boy  in  her 
heart,  needed  her  prayers.  That  was  enough 
for  her. 

One  evening  Jack  entertained  at  a  dinner  in 
his  apartment. 

It  was  Flossie  Brandon  who  found  his  moth- 
er's frayed  Bible,  that  she  discovered  on  the 
bottom  shelf  of  a  stand  in  the  corner.  Jack 
faced  the  crowd  with  a  flushed,  embarassed 
face,  as  the  girl  held  it  up,  and  called  the  atten- 
tion of  the  others  to  her  find. 

As  he  stared  at  it,  the  door  of  the  cuckoo 
clock  in  the  corner  opened.  One — two — three 
— four — five — six — seven — eight  times  came 
the  shrill  note  of  the  toy  bird.    Eight  o'clock! 

It  might  have  been  coincidence,  of  course. 
But  Jack  Norton  doesn't  think  so — now. 

Suddenly  through  the  frayed  cover  of  the 
Bible  he  seemed  to  catch  a  vision — his  mother 
in  her  room  at  home  on  her  knees,  and  the  post- 
scripts of  her  letters  flashed  back  to  him; — 
1  'At  eight  o'clock  every  evening  I  shall  be 


170  MOTHER'S  PRAYERS 


praying  for  you."  The  next  moment  he  swept 
the  vision  from  him,  and  laughed  as  he  pointed 
to  the  Bible. 

"Oh,  that's  a  relic!  Quite  a  curiosity,  isn't 
it?"  he  stammered. 

"And  whose  picture  is  this,  may  I  ask?"  de- 
manded Flossie  coldly,  stopping  before  a  pho- 
tograph of  Mary  Bradford  on  the  wall. 

Jack  flushed. 

"Oh,  that's  another  relic!"  he  laughed  again. 

Flossie  was  a  difficult  young  woman  to 
please.  She  measured  men  only  by  one  stand- 
ard, the  amount  of  money  they  would  spend 
on  her.  The  boy  found  his  bank  account  gone, 
and  his  debts  growing  like  a  snow-ball,  in  his 
frantic  effort  to  live  up  to  her  extravagant  ex- 
pectations. 

One  day  Jack  saw  the  cashier  drop  the  com- 
bination of  the  office  safe.  The  boy,  on  a  sud- 
den impulse,  put  his  foot  over  it,  and  when  he 
went  home  to  dinner  it  was  in  his  pocket. 

His  creditors  were  beginning  to  be  insulting, 
and  here  was  a  chance  to  pay  his  debts,  per- 
haps with  money  over,  and  no  risk,  to  himself. 
If  the  safe  were  robbed,  it  would  be  impossible 
for  any  one  to  suspect  that  he  had  a  hand  in  it. 

He  slipped  back  to  the  office  that  evening. 
The  safe  was  an  old  fashioned  type,  and  the 


MOTHER'S  PRAYERS  171 


combination  made  it  absurdly  simple  for  him  to 
open  it. 

Jack  was  twirling  the  last  of  the  tumblers 
when  a  low,  whirring  sound  back  of  him  made 
him  jump  with  a  face  like  a  sheet.  But  it  was 
only  the  office  clock  preparing  to  strike. 

One — two — three — f  our — five — six — seven 
— eight! 

Jack  stared  at  the  safe  like  a  man  suddenly 
paralyzed. 

It  could  not  be  coincidence  again — and  yet 
it  must  be!  Jack  pushed  his  hand  over  his 
face.  It  was  suddenly  dripping  with  per- 
spiration. Perhaps  you  can  find  a  satisfactory 
explanation.    Jack  has  ceased  to  try. 

Burning  his  brain,  as  he  stood  there,  were 
the  words  of  his  mother's  letters,  "Remember, 
every  evening  at  eight  o'clock  I  shall  be  pray- 
ing for  you — winter  or  summer  P 

In  the  mirror-like  silver  handle  of  the  safe 
he  seemed  to  see  reflected  the  figure  of  a  kneel- 
ing woman — his  mother  by  her  bed-side  in  her 
room  at  home. 

A  mother  never  forgets  her  promise  to  her 
boy. 

"Brace  up!  You  are  letting  your  nerves 
get  away  with  you!"  he  taunted  himself. 

With  an  oath  he  swung  open  the  safe  door, 


172  MOTHER'S  PRAYERS 


and  stuffed  a  bundle  of  the  yellow  bills  in  the 
cash  drawer  into  his  pocket.  The  picture  of 
his  mother  had  gone. 

When  he  returned  to  his  rooms  he  found 
that  he  had  stolen  two  thousand  dollars. 

The  next  morning  the  head  of  the  firm  had 
him  on  the  carpet  with  the  rest  of  the  staff. 
Jack  didn't  like  the  look  in  his  eyes,  but  he  told 
himself  it  was  impossible  to  connect  him  with 
the  robbery. 

A  week  later  he  was  called  into  the  private 
office  again. 

"You're  through,  Norton,"  his  employer 
said.  "You  can  get  your  time  on  your  way 
out." 

The  boy  began  to  bluster.  "What  do  you 
mean?" 

"I  mean  that  a  young  fellow  who  has  as 
many  outside  interests  as  we  find  you  have  is  of 
no  further  use  to  us!" 

Jack  went  out  with  his  head  high. 

Jobs  were  easy,  he  told  himself.  He  found 
Dick  Randolph,  and  approached  him  on  the 
subject  of  another  connection. 

"I  had  to  tell  the  office  I  couldn't  stand  their 
old  fashioned  methods  any  longer,"  he  said. 
"Introduce  me  to  somebody  who  can  appreci- 
ate real  brains." 


MOTHER'S  PRAYERS  173 


But  Dick  shook  his  head.  "You'll  have  to 
dig  for  yourself,  I'm  afraid.  I  have  all  that  I 
can  attend  to  just  now!"  he  said  coldly. 

"Then  let  me  have  a  hundred  until  Tues- 
day." 

Dick  shook  his  head  again.  "I'm  over- 
drawn at  the  bank,  and  my  father  is  threaten- 
ing to  stop  my  allowance.  Wish  you  luck,  old 
man!" 

Jack  changed  to  his  evening  clothes,  and 
hunted  up  Flossie  Brandon.  Here  at  least  he 
would  find  some  one  who  understood  him. 

She  looked  at  him  with  a  sneer  when  he  had 
finished  his  story. 

"I  don't  see  how  that  affects  me,"  she  said, 
putting  on  her  hat. 

"But  I  did  it  all  for  you,"  cried  Jack. 

"That's  what  they  all  say,"  Flossie  yawned. 
"If  they  won't  send  you  any  more  money  from 
home,  pawn  what  you  can,  and  go  to  work  in 
earnest!  I  have  an  engagement,  my  dear 
boy!" 

Jack  staggered  out  into  the  street.  His 
world  had  come  to  an  end. 

He  thought  that  he  was  a  very  much  de- 
ceived and  wronged  young  man,  and  he  hired 
all  of  the  bar-tenders  he  could  find  to  help  him 
forget  his  troubles. 


174  MOTHER'S  PRAYERS 


They  were  doing  their  best  after  thirty  days 
interval,  but  they  hadn't  succeeded,  although 
he  had  pawned  everything  that  a  pawn-shop 
would  take,  and  had  borrowed  all  the  money 
his  friends  would  loan  him. 

The  only  thing  that  whiskey  can  make  a  man 
forget,  whether  it  is  poured  from  a  cut  glass 
decanter  on  a  mahogany  bar,  or  from  a  black 
bottle  on  a  tramp's  hip,  is  his  manhood. 

Jack  drifted  from  Forty-second  Street 
down  to  Fourteenth  Street,  and  then  with  short 
steps  to  the  Bowery. 

The  farther  a  man  gets  on  the  toboggan  the 
faster  he  shoots. 

The  one-time  tango  idol  of  the  Broadway 
lobster  palaces  degenerated  into  a  street-corner 
beggar,  and  an  object  of  police  suspicion.  One 
evening  he  slouched  out  from  a  doorway  over 
to  a  taxicab,  where  a  party  of  men  and  women 
in  Fifth  Avenue  togs  were  stepping  gingerly 
out  onto  the  walk  for  a  slumming  trip. 

"Please,  can  you  give  me  the  price  of  a  cup 
of  coffee  and  a  bed,"  he  whined. 

The  man  nearest  him  turned  impatiently. 
It  was  Dick  Randolph. 

Jack  saw  the  look  of  recognition  in  the  oth- 
er's eyes,  and  then  Dick  tossed  him  a  two- 
dollar  bill. 


MOTHER'S  PRAYERS  175 


"Take  this,  and  beat  it,  you  bum!" 

Jack  stuffed  the  bill  into  his  pocket  and 
shuffled  off.  His  hands  were  clenched,  and 
something  inside  of  him  was  burning  like  a  hot 
coal. 

He  stopped  a  block  away,  hesitating  be- 
tween a  Childs  restaurant  and  a  corner  saloon. 
Should  he  get  a  steak,  or  another  drink? 

He  turned  suddenly  from  both  restaurant 
and  saloon  with  a  wild  look  like  fever  in  his 
eyes.  Dick  Randolph  had  called  him  a  bum 
— and  Dick  Randolph  was  right. 

Why  continue  a  hopeless  fight? 

He  pushed  into  a  dismal  little  pawn  shop, 
heavy  with  the  atmosphere  of  lost  hopes,  and 
for  his  two-dcllar  bill  he  received  a  second  hand 
revolver,  a  box  of  cartridges,  and  fifteen  cents 
in  change. 

He  stopped  again  in  a  small  park,  scowled  at 
a  spoony  couple  on  a  bench  before  him,  and 
loaded  his  revolver  behind  them. 

He  was  raising  the  weapon  to  his  head  when 
another  voice  checked  him. 

It  was  that  of  a  girl  on  the  street  corner, 
singing  to  the  accompaniment  of  a  bass  drum 
and  a  cornet. 

The  revolver  fell  to  his  side. 


176  MOTHER'S  PRAYERS 


Clear  and  high  the  girl's  voice  was  ringing 
as  she  reached  the  chorus  of  her  song : 

"I'm  coming  home, 
I'm  coming  home  to  live  my  wasted  life  anew. 
For  mother's  prayers  have  followed  me, 
Have  followed  me  the  whole  world  through." 

And  then  the  second  verse  in  the  same  ar- 
resting, penetrating  key ; — 

"O'er  desert  wild,  o'er  mountain  high, 
A  wanderer  I  chose  to  be, 
A  wretched  soul  condemned  to  die, 
Still  mother's  prayers  have  followed  me." 

Jack  dropped  the  revolver  into  his  pocket, 
and  stumbled  out  into  the  street.  He  was 
walking  like  a  man  in  his  sleep. 

The  girl  reached  the  song's  concluding  verse : 

"He  turned  my  darkness  into  light, 
This  blessed  Christ  of  Calvary, 
I'll  praise  His  name  both  day  and  night, 
That  mother's  prayers  have  followed  me." 

As  the  words  died  away,  she  turned  toward 
the  doors  of  a  corner  mission  hall. 

Jack  slouched  after  the  two  men  with  her 
who  were  carrying  the  bass  drum  and  the  cor- 
net. 


MOTHER'S  PRAYERS  177 

The  words  of  the  song  kept  dancing  in  the 
air  before  him,  and  through  them  he  seemed 
to  see  vaguely,  as  at  a  great  distance,  his 
mother  on  her  knees,  with  her  hands  over  her 
eyes.  A  strange  mist  covered  her  face,  and 
he  couldn't  see  it  plainly,  but  he  knew  it  was 
there.  And  he  knew  that  he  was  weak,  and 
dizzy,  and  sick,  and  that  something  was  hap- 
pening to  him  that  he  couldn't  understand. 

He  dropped  onto  a  pine  bench  in  the  rear  of 
the  mission  hall,  and  fumbled  with  his  hat. 

There  were  other  men  on  the  benches,  and 
two  or  three  women — most  of  them  battered 
wrecks  from  the  streets — who  looked  as  though 
they  had  lost  their  way  and  didn't  know 
whether  they  could  ever  find  it  again,  or  not. 

An  aisle  in  the  center  led  up  to  a  platform, 
on  which  stood  a  man  with  a  beaming  smile, 
that  seemed  to  take  in  everybody  in  the  hall. 

Jack's  eyes  fixed  themselves  suddenly  on  a 
clock  on  the  wall  over  the  man's  head.  Its 
hands  pointed  exactly  to  eight. 

He  tried  to  remember  something  that  kept 
slipping  away  from  him,  and  then  like  a  flash  it 
came  to  him,  the  forgotten  postscripts  of  his 
mother's  letters — "Remember,  I  shall  always 
be  praying  for  you  at  eight  o'clock,  winter  or 
summer." 


178  MOTHER'S  PRAYERS 


Coincidence  a  third  time?  Or  mental 
telepathy  ?  Or  the  spirit  of  God  ?  Jack  gives 
the  facts.    He  can't  give  the  reason  for  them. 

All  he  knows  was  that  he  was  staggering  to 
his  feet,  and  stumbling  down  the  aisle. 

Suddenly  the  mist  faded  from  the  picture  of 
his  mother  that  had  been  dancing  in  the  air 
before  him.  He  saw  her  face  distinctly  now, 
as  distinctly  as  though  she  were  in  the  room 
with  him.  And  through  her  tears  she  was 
smiling.  At  the  platform  he  dropped  to  his 
knees  weakly. 

He  knew  that  for  the  first  time  since  he  had 
fallen  out  of  the  apple  tree,  and  broken  his 
arm,  when  he  was  a  boy,  there  was  something 
salty  in  his  eyes  that  didn't  belong  there. 

The  man  on  the  platform  reached  over,  and 
gave  him  a  thump  on  the  shoulders,  and  led 

After  the  service  he  sat  down  at  his  side, 
him  to  a  front  bench. 

He  didn't  ask  questions.  He  was  too  good  a 
judge  of  human  nature.  Before  Jack  knew 
it,  he  was  giving  the  other  the  story  of  his 
life. 

"God  hasn't  any  use  for  a  man  with  a  skele- 
ton in  his  closet  or  for  a  quitter,"  said  the 
superintendent  when  the  boy  had  finished. 
"You  can't  get  right  with  God  unless  you're 


MOTHER'S  PRAYERS 


179 


right  with  men.  You  must  go  back  to  your 
firm  and  tell  them  it  was  you  who  robbed  their 
safe." 

''But  they  will  send  me  to  prison  if  I  do!" 

"That's  up  to  them.  You  sinned  deliber- 
ately, and  you  must  pay — as  they  decide,  not 
you.  You've  got  to  stand  on  your  own  feet, 
or  not  at  all." 

Jack's  glance  fell  to  the  floor,  and  his  hands 
clenched  as  he  fought  out  the  battle  with  him- 
self.   He  raised  his  eyes  steadily. 

"I'll— I'll  go  through  with  it." 

"You  understand  what  it  means?" 

"I  understand!"  the  boy  said  quietly. 
"You're  right.  God  cant  have  any  use  for  a 
quitter!" 

The  superintendent  put  Jack  to  bed,  and 
then  sent  off  a  long  telegram,  which  he  read 
over  carefully  before  he  gave  it  to  the  messen- 
ger boy. 

The  next  afternoon  the  ex-Broadway  Kid 
and  the  superintendent  of  the  mission  were 
ushered  into  the  private  office  of  Jack's  former 
employer. 

There  was  a  queer  taste  in  the  boy's  mouth, 
and  a  queer  light  in  his  eyes,  but  he  faced  the 
head  of  the  firm  without  a  quiver,  and  told  his 
story. 


180  MOTHER'S  PRAYERS 


"Is  it  the  penitentiary?"  he  asked  when  he 
had  finished. 

His  employer  looked  at  his  desk  for  a  mo- 
ment in  silence. 

"I've  got  to  do  my  duty!"  he  said  grimly, 
and  pushed  a  button  before  him. 

Jack  caught  his  breath.  Above  him  he  saw 
again  the  picture  of  his  mother  on  her  knees 
and  he  closed  his  eyes  to  blot  it  out.  If  they 
could  only  keep  it  from  her ! 

"Go  to  it!"  he  said  huskily.    "I'm  ready!" 

Behind  him  the  door  opened.  It  must  be 
the  detectives.  For  an  instant  he  stood  rigid, 
and  then,  without  turning,  he  held  his  wrists 
out  behind  him,  for  the  handcuffs. 

But  it  was  not  the  grip  of  steel  that  caught 
them.  It  was  something  soft,  and  moist,  and 
warm.  With  a  gasp  he  whirled.  It  was  his 
mother's  hands. 

And  behind  her  stood  his  father.  It  was  his 
father  who  spoke  first. 

"We've  come  to  take  you  home,"  he  said. 
"We  need  a  new  firm  sign  at  the  old  factory!" 

Jack  stared  dumbly.  The  room  was  whirl- 
ing over  his  head. 

"But  what  about  the  money  I  owe  here,  the 
money  I  stole,"  he  stammered. 

"I'll  pay  it  back,  son,  and  give  you  a  chance 


MOTHER'S  PRAYERS  181 


to  work  it  out  for  me!  If  you  tell  me  the 
prodigal  has  learned  his  lesson  we'll  all  try  to 
forget  it!    What  do  you  say?" 

A  month  later,  in  the  dusk  of  a  summer 
evening,  Jack  stole  up  on  the  porch  of  the  old 
home  cottage,  sweet  with  the  scent  of  honey- 
suckle and  lilacs.  He  was  holding  the  hand  of 
a  girl  beside  him,  a  girl  with  shining  eyes. 

His  mother  rose  from  her  easy  chair,  and 
dropped  her  knitting. 

"I've  brought  you  home  a  new  daughter," 
he  said;  "Mary  Bradford  has  promised  to  take 
a  chance  with  me,  in  spite  of  the  past!" 

A  few  minutes  afterward  he  pulled  Mary 
across  to  the  piano. 

"Play  for  me,"  he  begged. 

"What  shall  it  be?"  she  asked. 

"My  favorite  song,  of  course!"  And  he 
added  softly,  "The  song  that  brought  me  back 
to  myself,  and  to  you  and  to  God." 

The  girl  smiled,  and  her  hands  ran  lightly 
over  the  keys,  as,  through  the  room,  there 
floated  the  strains  of  "My  Mother's  Prayers 
Have  Followed  Me!" 

He  turned  my  darkness  into  light, 

This  blessed  Christ  of  Calvary! 
I'll  praise  his  name  both  day  and  night, 

That  mother's  prayers  have  followed  me. 


Are  Ton  Counting  the  Cost? 


U  DolerOtfdoa. 


B.  D  AcHey. 


1.  Your  Sav-iour  is    call-ing  from  Cal-  va-ry's  tree,  His  sac-ri-fice 

2.  How  can  you  neg-Iect  His  sal  -  va-tion  so  great?  His  word  Stand-eth 

3.  Why  tar  -  ry  to   gath-er   the  treas-ures  of  earth  That  short-ly  most 

4.  For  what  shall  it  prof  -  it  you  there, tho'  you  gain  The  wealth  of  the 

'  J  J'  J  i  .  „  .  ,  J  J 


can  you  re  •  fuse?  Re-ject  His  sal-va-tion  so  pre-cious  and  free,Your 
true  ev  er  -  more;  Come, en- ter  the  king-dom  be-fore  its  too  late:  Come 
cruin-ble  a  -  way  Come, lay  op  the  jew-els  of  in  -  fi-niteworth,  That 
world  as   a    whole?  0  shall  not  your  la  -  bor  be  worse  than  in  vain,  If 

■U  J  J  J  J  J 


hope  of  e-W-ni-ty  lose? 

while  there's  a  wide-o-pen  d«or!  Are  yon  couuting  the  cost,  are  you  counting  the 
shine  thro' e- ter- ni-ty's  day. 
there  by  you  lose  your  own  soul? 


cost  ?When  your  Lord  you  refuse  are  you  count-ingthe  cost?  I^you^kno^with-out 


gAJM  \  i  II 

Je 

-ens  your  soul  will  be  lost?  When  your  Lord ; 

pou  refuse  ar 

e  you  counting  the  cost? 

eb^  r  rii a  i-T^^f 

'-I--1— g-g  ft  V  \  p  h 

X 


"are  you  counting  the  cost?" 

Stories  of  real  life  don't  end  always  the  way 
we  expect  them  to — or  want  them  to. 

God  is  always  staging  dramas,  and  picking 
His  settings  from  the  familiar  scenes  about 
us,  and  selecting  His  casts  from  men  and 
women  that  we  know. 

And  sometimes  He  lets  us  watch  their  un- 
folding. But  He  seldom  gives  us  the  climax 
that  we  are  anticipating.  And  then  we  try 
frantically  to  explain  the  logic,  or  the  motiva- 
tion, or  the  characterization,  and  because  we 
can't  understand  it  to  our  satisfaction  we  try 
to  tell  ourselves  that  it  is  out  of  focus  with  life 
— as  it  ought  to  be. 

For  instance,  why  should  the  singing  of  a 
simple  song  change  the  whole  life  of  Jim  Tar- 
leton  almost  instantly  when,  for  over  thirty 
years,  he  had  been  deaf  to  every  other  emo- 
tion and  every  other  call  except  those  of  self? 

And,  after  this  reformation,  which  was  a 

183 


184*     "ARE  YOU  COUNTING  THE  COST?" 


miracle  to  those  who  knew  the  man,  why  should 
the  end  be  as  it  was  ? 

But  this  is  not  an  effort  to  tell  why,  or  how 
— it  is  only  an  effort  to  present  the  simple,  un- 
varnished facts  in  the  case. 

The  story  came  from  Frank  Heneage,  the 
cotton  broker,  a  big,  steady-eyed  chap,  who 
has  made  his  fortune  in  ten  years  by  the  hard- 
est kind  of  driving  work.  In  all  of  his  ten 
years  Heneage  had  never  spared  himself,  or 
any  one  else  who  was  working  for  him.  Nor 
has  he  made  his  money  in  speculation.  Deal- 
ing in  "futures"  is  in  Heneage's  mind  more  or 
less  gambling,  and  Heneage  doesn't  gamble. 

He  insisted  that  I  go  out  to  lunch  with  him, 
and  after  we  had  taken  the  first  edge  off  our 
hunger — and  Heneage  has  an  appetite  that  is 
a  wonder — we  settled  back  to  talk. 

"I  have  a  strong  story  to  tell  you,"  he  said; 
"a  story  that  some  men  wouldn't  believe — 
maybe  I  wouldn't,  if  I  hadn't  seen  it  develop 
before  my  own  eyes."  He  looked  at  me 
thoughtfully.  "I'm  not  much  on  psychology. 
I'm  not  trying  to  explain  the  reasons  back  of 
it  all.  I  am  just  going  to  tell  you  what  hap- 
pened." 

"Yes?"  I  encouraged. 

"It's  about  Jim  Tarleton,"  he  continued;  "I 


ARE  YOU  COUNTING  THE  COST?"  185 


think  I  introduced  him  to  you  once,  some  years 
ago?" 

I  nodded.  I  remembered  Tarleton  very 
well.  He  was  famous  for  his  clothes,  the  lux- 
ury of  the  furnishings  of  his  room,  his  taste  in 
art,  his  extravagant  parties.  In  appearance 
and  manner  Jim  Tarleton  was  called  a  typi- 
cal dude;  but  for  all  that  it  had  been  my  im- 
pression that  he  had  a  lot  of  good  qualities, 
at  heart,  only  that  they  had  never  been  devel- 
oped. 

"Jim  wasn't  a  bad  fellow,  all  in  all,"  Hene- 
age  continued,  "a  good  deal  of  a  young  fool, 
but  not  what  you  would  call  vicious  at  any 
time.  His  one  serious  weakness  was  his  ex- 
travagance ;  and  as  we  all  thought  that  he  had 
all  the  money  in  the  world  nobody  ever  both- 
ered about  his  future.  After  he  graduated  at 
college — and  he  took  the  senior  Latin  prize, 
too — he  and  Al  Cummings,  who  was  of  much 
the  same  type,  leased  a  New  York  apartment 
on  Park  Avenue  together,  and  lived  there  in 
high  style  with  a  Japanese  servant  and  a 
French  chef.  Occasionally  in  the  Broadway 
restaurants  I  would  see  Jim  and  Al,  dining  in 
splendor,  with  a  whole  circle  of  admiring 
friends,  men  and  women.  Jim  paid  the  bills, 
I  suppose,  the  men  and  women  with  him,  good- 


186    "ARE  YOU  COUNTING  THE  COST?" 

looking  as  they  were,  were  evidently  of  the 
parasite  class,  of  the  great  white  way. 

"For  two  years  Jim  was  conspicuous  among 
the  white  lights — then  he  disappeared.  Men 
have  a  habit  of  doing  that  on  Broadway ! 

"Eight  years  went  past  without  my  seeing 
him;  then  two  months  ago  he  showed  up  in 
the  office.  And  what  do  you  think  he  was 
doing  ?" 

I  shook  my  head. 

"Selling  calendars  at  ten  cents  apiece. 
Cheap  little  things  with  decorations  of  Kewpie 
heads;  the  kind  that  would  appeal  to  stenog- 
raphers and  office  boys  who  wanted  to  make  a 
hit  with  their  best  girls." 

"No?"  The  memory  of  Jim  Tarleton, 
lounging  luxuriously  on  his  tapestry  covered 
couch,  and  garbed  in  white  flannels,  white 
shoes,  and  lavendar  pin-striped  silk  shirt,  came 
back  vividly  to  my  memory.  I  remembered 
the  Kurdestan  rugs  on  the  floor,  the  priceless 
etchings  on  the  wall,  the  dainty,  almost  effem- 
inate dimity  curtains  at  the  windows.  All  the 
furniture  of  his  rooms  had  been  of  the  richest 
mahogany,  a  rich  dull  brown,  perfectly  pol- 
ished. 

Jim  Tarleton  selling  calendars!  It  seemed 
absurd,  grotesque. 


"ARE  YOU  COUNTING  THE  COST?"  187 


"Poor  old  Jim  hadn't  any  idea  that  it  was 
my  office  he  had  entered,"  said  Heneage. 
"He  would  have  died,  I  think,  rather  than  to 
have  come  in  if  he  had  known,  for  Jim's  pride 
was  as  strong  as  his  vanity.  When,  quite  ac- 
cidentally, I  walked  out  and  confronted  him, 
he  shrank  back  as  if  he  had  been  struck  a 
physical  blow. 

"  'Jim?'  I  said,  'Old  Jim!'  And  held  out 
my  hand.  At  first  I  thought  that  he  wasn't 
going  to  take  it.  Then  he  gripped  me  as  if  I 
was  holding  him  from  falling  from  a  treach- 
erous pinnacle.  As  he  seized  my  hand  he  be- 
gan to  cough,  a  hard,  hacking  cough  that  shook 
him  all  over.  With  his  left  hand  he  fumbled 
for  his  handkerchief.  It  was  clean,  but 
ragged,  and  he  passed  it  across  his  lips. 

"  'Come  in,  Jim,'  I  said,  'and  tell  me  about 
it.' 

"Without  a  word,  he  followed  me  into  the 
private  office,  and  sat  down  in  the  big  leather 
chair  I  pulled  up  to  the  desk. 

"For  the  first  time  I  got  a  good  look  at  him. 
The  boy  was  a  pitiable  sight.  His  shoes  were 
clean  of  dirt,  but  they  hadn't  been  polished  for 
weeks  evidently,  a  big  crack  ran  across  one  of 
them  just  at  the  place  where  the  toes  break  in 
walking,  and  through  the  cracks  peeped  the 


188    "ARE  YOU  COUNTING  THE  COST?" 

faded  yellow  of  what  had  once  been  white  cot- 
ton stockings. 

"His  trousers  were  shiny  at  the  knees,  and 
were  patched  clumsily  at  the  edges  of  the 
pockets,  and  his  coat  was  as  threadbare  as  his 
trousers,  the  edge  of  the  collar  beginning  to 
fray.  His  shirt  was  clean,  but  sewed  up 
around  the  neck  with  clumsy  stitches,  and  his 
collar  was  cracked  at  the  front,  cracks  which 
the  poor  chap  had  painstakingly  tried  to  con- 
ceal by  knotting  a  faded  red  scarf  into  a  big 
bunch  in  front. 

His  face  was  dead  white,  with  a  sort  of  blue 
tinge  around  the  eyes  and  the  mouth,  and  a 
faint  flush  of  pink  on  the  tips  of  the  cheek- 
bones. His  hair,  though  smoothly  brushed, 
hung  down  stragglingly  behind. 

"  'Tell  me  about  it,  Jim!'  I  said.  And  he 
told  me,  in  a  dull,  hopeless  sort  of  a  voice,  whose 
tones  scarcely  varied. 

"When  he  had  finished  I  got  up  for  a  min- 
ute, and  looked  out  of  the  window.  To  take 
him  to  lunch,  to  give  him  a  few  dollars — that 
was  the  least  I  could  do.  But  couldn't  I  do 
a  great  deal  more?  Was  it  possible  to  re- 
make Jim's  life?    Was  it  too  late? 

"For  some  time  I  debated  the  problem. 
Then  I  decided. 


"ARE  YOU  COUNTING  THE  COST?"  189 


"  'Will  you  spend  the  rest  of  the  day  with 
me,  Jim?'  I  asked.  He  nodded;  and  then 
broke  out  again  in  that  paroxysm  of  coughing. 

"I  took  Jim  by  the  elbow,  and  we  left.  I 
could  almost  hear  the  clerks  and  stenographers 
in  the  outer  office  snickering  as  we  passed.  Of 
course,  they  didn't  make  a  sound,  but  I  could 
feel  their  attitude  in  the  whole  atmosphere. 
And  I  guess  Jim  felt  it  too,  for  his  head,  that 
used  to  be  held  so  proudly  and  audaciously, 
hung  low  between  his  shoulders. 

"My  destination  was  the  Billy  Sunday  tab- 
ernacle, for  his  New  York  campaign  was  at  its 
height  at  that  time.  I  took  Jim  first  to  a  dairy 
lunch  room,  for  I  knew  he  would  be  embar- 
rassed in  one  of  the  big  restaurants,  and  I  or- 
dered about  half  the  bill-of-fare  for  him. 

"After  the  first  ten  minutes  he  was  able  to 
talk,  but  at  first  the  smell  and  the  taste  of  the 
food  seemed  almost  to  set  him  crazy. 

"After  the  meal  we  got  into  the  subway, 
and  went  uptown  to  the  huge  tabernacle  on  the 
Yankees'  old  ball  field. 

"The  meeting  seemed  fairly  to  hypnotize 
Jim.  He  just  sat  there,  with  his  eyes  dry  and 
staring  and  his  face  drawn.  When  we  left 
the  tabernacle  and  started  across  the  street 
with  the  crowd,  I  had  a  chance  to  get  a  good 


190    "ARE  YOU  COUNTING  THE  COST?" 

look  at  him.  His  eyes  were  very  bright,  and 
unconsciously  he  was  humming  a  tune,  the 
tune  of  one  of  those  swinging,  catchy  hymns  we 
had  heard — 

"Are  you  counting  the  cost,  are  you  counting  the  cost? 
When  your  Lord  you  refuse  are  you  counting  the  cost? 
Do  you  know  without  Jesus  your  soul  will  be  lost 
When  your  Lord  you  refuse  are  you  counting  the  cost?" 

"The  words  were  running  through  my  head, 
too.  I  didn't  say  anything.  I  didn't  think  it 
was  the  time. 

"When  we  got  downtown  again  I  bought  a 
good  hearty  dinner  for  him,  and  then  took  him 
around  to  a  cheap  hotel  I  knew,  one  of  those 
clean,  quiet  places,  supported  by  an  endow- 
ment, where  a  man  can  have  a  room  with  a 
good  bed  for  about  three  dollars  a  week. 

"I  wanted  to  wait  until  he  had  undressed  and 
got  to  bed,  but  I  remembered  the  condition  of 
his  wardrobe,  and  realized  he  would  be  em- 
barrassed if  I  stayed.  So  I  shook  his  hand, 
and  slapped  him  on  the  shoulder,  and  prom- 
ised to  look  around  for  an  easy  job  for  him,  for 
in  his  condition  he  was  in  no  shape  to  do  hard 
work,  either  physical,  or  mental. 

"As  I  closed  the  door  I  heard  him  begin  to 
hum  again  the  words  of  the  song  we  had  heard, 


"ARE  YOU  COUNTING  THE  COST?"  191 

"Are  you  counting  the  cost?  Are  you  count- 
ing the  cost?" 

"Downstairs  I  told  the  clerk  to  keep  Jim 
there  as  long  as  he  needed  to  stay,  and  to  send 
the  bills  to  me.  I  am  not  a  good  Samaritan. 
Anyone  else  who  knew  Jim  in  the  old  days 
would  have  done  the  same  for  him.  As  I  went 
home,  I  guess  I  must  have  been  humming  that 
song  of  his,  for  people  turned  to  stare  after  me 
in  the  street. 

"I  didn't  see  Jim  again  for  a  month,  though 
I  found  him  a  job  running  a  freight  elevator  in 
a  large  office  building.  He  didn't  have  to  do 
heavy  work  there,  and  could  sit  on  a  stool  while 
the  car  was  running,  which  was  only  at  infre- 
quent intervals. 

"They  gave  him  ten  dollars  a  week,  and  to 
Jim's  credit,  he  refused  to  let  me  pay  for  his 
lodgings  after  the  second  week.  The  clerk  at 
the  hotel  called  me  up,  and  told  me  that  Mr. 
Tarleton  had  paid  for  his  room  in  advance. 

"But  he  couldn't  stick  it  out.  About  a 
month  later,  as  I  told  you,  I  saw  him  again — 
I  went  hurrying  up  to  his  hotel  in  reply  to  a 
hurry  call.  Jim  was  very  sick,  they  told  me, 
and  had  been  sent  to  a  hospital  just  before  I 
arrived." 

Heneage  paused,  and  looked  out  of  the  win- 


192    "ARE  YOU  COUNTING  THE  COST?" 


dow.  Under  his  breath  he  was  whistling 
softly.  I  recognized  the  tune.  It  was  again 
the  song: — "Are  You  Counting  the  Cost?" 

"What  had  happened  to  him?"  I  asked, 
"liquor,  women,  cards,  or — what?" 

"He  hadn't  'counted  the  cost,'  "  came  the 
brief  answer. 

"What  do  you  mean?" 

"Just  this,"  Heneage  settled  himself  in  his 
chair  again.  "Jim  hadn't  kept  his  expense  ac- 
count, either  with  this  world — or  with  God. 
He  had  let  everything  slide.  Always  weak 
and  pleasure-loving,  he  had  simply  lost  his  grip 
— his  money,  his  health,  and  worst  of  all,  his 
faith.  Xothing  mattered  except  fun.  And 
he  went  after  his  fun  recklessly  with  no  thought 
of  the  future." 

"The  story  that  he  told  me,"  Heneage  con- 
tinued, "had  nothing  particularly  novel  or 
unique  about  it. 

"Jim's  life  was  merely  a  constant  search  for 
a  good  time.  Automobiling,  tennis,  golf,  the 
theater,  late  dinner  parties,  anything  for  a  few 
hours  of  sport. 

"Jim  Tarleton's  moral  decline  had  been 
gradual,  and  his  physical  decay  had  been  de- 
layed by  his  comparative  temperance — for  he 
was  never  chronically  dissipated. 


"ARE  YOU  COUNTING  THE  COST?"  193 


"He  had  fitted  up  his  apartment  in  New 
York  with  Al  Cnmmings  regardless  of  expense 
with  the  one  idea — a  good  time. 

"Cummings,  himself,  didn't  have  any  money 
to  speak  of,  but  he  made  a  splendid  front,  and 
was  received  in  the  best  circles,  belonged  to 
three  of  the  exclusive  clubs,  and  was  popular 
with  the  girls  and  liked  by  their  mothers,  not- 
withstanding his  ineligibility  as  a  husband  for 
a  rich  young  debutante. 

"Jim,  who  had  about  a  hundred  thousand  in 
his  own  right,  and  was  an  orphan,  came  from 
the  middle  West,  and  like  other  foolish  young 
fellowrs,  he  wras  dazzled  by  the  apparent  splen- 
dors of  the  great  white  way. 

"Cummings  got  him  into  his  clubs,  and,  in 
return  Jim  paid  most  of  Cummings'  bills,  flor- 
ists, wine-dealers',  restaurants,  taxi-cabs,  and 
so  forth. 

"Three  or  four  times  a  week  the  twro  of 
them  gave  a  big  party,  with  some  young  mat- 
ron of  easy  morals  but  of  a  distinguished  name 
acting  as  chaperone.  All  the  delicacies  of  the 
world,  and  the  rarest  wines  were  gathered  to 
regale  the  guests,  and  Jim's  parties  became 
famous.  Xot  infrequently,  too,  there  would 
be  a  grand  blow-out  for  certain  beautiful 


194    "ARE  YOU  COUNTING  THE  COST?" 


women  of  the  stage,  and  the  favors  at  these 
parties  would  run  up  in  the  hundreds. 

"Jim's  morals,  I  repeat,  weren't  essentially 
vicious. 

"Of  the  more  flagrant  forms  of  licentious- 
ness he  disapproved  heartily,  but  because  they 
seemed  to  him  vulgar  rather  than  because  they 
were  wrong.  He  simply  didn't  realize  that 
there  was  anything  in  the  world  except  the 
pursuit  of  pleasure.  God  was  an  abstract  con- 
ception, quite  outside  of  his  understanding. 
He  knew  that  good  English  demands  that  you 
spell  the  name  of  the  Deity  with  a  capital  let- 
ter.   That  was  all. 

"The  life  that  he  led  couldn't  go  on  at  the 
rate  of  even  six  per  cent  interest  on  a  hundred 
thousand  principal.  And  within  a  very  few 
months  he  was  dipping  into  his  capital  with 
both  hands,  and  spilling  great  splatters  as  he 
drew  them  out.  And,  as  his  capital  grew 
smaller,  his  income  decreased;  so  he  had  to 
draw  harder  and  harder  on  the  principal. 
Finally,  in  little  more  than  two  years  after  his 
arrival  in  New  York,  he  found  himself  prac- 
tically penniless,  and  his  first  cheque  came  back 
marked  'not  sufficient  funds.' 

"That  jarred  him,  but  the  soft  life  he  had 
been  leading  wasn't  calculated  to  give  him 


"ARE  YOU  COUNTING  THE  COST?"  195 


careful  thought.  Still  he  didn't  count  the  cost. 
He  had  established  such  a  reputation  as  a 
spender  that  his  credit  remained  good  almost 
everywhere  for  some  time.  The  bills  piled  up, 
unheeded,  or  rather,  didn't  pile  up,  for  he 
chucked  them  into  the  waste  basket  as  fast  as 
they  came  in. 

"Then  Al  Cummings,  whose  credit  never 
had  been  worth  anything,  came  to  him  with  the 
request  for  a  couple  of  hundred  in  cash.  Jim 
went  to  the  club,  and  borrowed  a  thousand 
from  three  or  four  friends.  That  wras  easy 
enough,  and  when  Al  was  broke  again,  Jim 
made  another  visit  to  the  club — only  he  kept  a 
couple  of  hundred  for  his  own  pocket  this 
time. 

"Credit  was  still  good,  but  real  cash,  for 
tips,  for  out-of-town  dinners  at  road  houses 
where  he  wasn't  known,  and  so  on,  was  grow- 
ing scanty.  He  made  a  third  touch  at  his 
club. 

"It  was  there  that  he  got  his  first  jolt.  The 
young  cashier  of  the  Fifth  Avenue  Bank, 
where  Jim  had  once  had  an  account,  had  been 
drinking  too  much  that  night,  and  had  gos- 
siped. Four  men,  in  succession,  turned  him 
down;  told  him  to  come  round  to-morrow, 
when  they  would  be  better  fixed.    But  not  one 


196    "ARE  YOU  COUNTING  THE  COST?" 


of  the  four  was  in  the  club  the  next  day.  To- 
ward two  in  the  morning  Jim  gave  up,  and 
walked  home,  his  hands  deep  in  the  pockets  of 
his  braided  evening  trousers. 

"The  next  day  Cummings  needed  more 
money.  Jim  told  him  he  couldn't  get  it;  and 
Cummings,  fair  weather  friend,  immediately 
packed  up,  and  went  off  to  a  house  party  in 
Maine. 

"A  week  later  the  Japanese  servant,  across 
the  breakfast  table,  murmured:  "You  no  pay 
two  week  now,  Mis  Tarleton." 

"Xo,  Koji,"  Jim  replied,  with  a  hollow  feel- 
ing, "I'll  pay  you  next  week." 

"The  end  of  the  next  week  Koji  left,  silently 
but  with  dark  looks.  A  succession  of  servants 
followed ;  some  stayed  for  two  weeks  or  even  a 
month,  some  left  within  a  day  or  two,  warned 
of  a  sinking  ship  by  the  persistence  of  trades- 
men's demands  at  the  back  door. 

"Jim  began  to  look  cautiously  up  and  down 
the  street  before  venturing  down  the  steps  of 
the  apartment  house. 

"Then  his  name  was  posted  in  the  most  se- 
lect of  his  clubs  for  non-payment  of  his  house 
charges.  The  same  thing  happened  shortly  at 
the  others.  Another  haven  from  creditors  was 
closed  to  him.    He  began  the  rounds  of  the 


"ARE  YOU  COUNTING  THE  COST?"  197 


second-hand  clothes  shops,  and  dingy  pawn- 
shops. 

His  landlord  endured  longest  of  all.  But 
eventually  there  came  a  terse  but  polite  note 
from  him  asking  Mr.  Tarleton  to  vacate  his 
quarters.  In  a  sort  of  trance  Jim  moved  to 
the  best  hotel  in  town.  On  the  strength  of  his 
former  reputation  he  stayed  there  for  a  month; 
then  with  only  a  suitcase,  he  stole  away,  seek- 
ing harbor  in  a  family  hotel  uptown. 

"There  he  lasted  less  than  two  weeks.  The 
word  was  being  passed  along.  The  Hotel 
Men's  Association,  ever  vigilant,  scented  de- 
cay. 

"A  third-rate  hotel  in  a  shabby  side  street, 
noisy  with  the  drays  and  trucks  that  load  and 
unload  all  day  and  most  of  the  night  at  the 
rear  entrances  of  the  big  office  buildings,  was 
his  next  refuge.  But  there,  too,  he  was 
quickly  dispossessed. 

"An  unexpected  invitation  to  a  house  party 
tided  him  over  the  next  month.  He  left  with- 
out tipping  any  of  the  servants  and  borrowed 
ten  dollars  from  his  host  to  get  back  to  town. 
Home  again — but  what  was  home  now? 

"In  desperation  he  wandered  about  the  city 
looking  for  work,  any  kind  of  a  job.  So  long 
as  his  clothes  remained  good,  and  he  could 


198    "ARE  YOU  COUNTING  THE  COST?" 


visit  a  barber  shop  regularly  he  was  able  to 
pick  up  small  employments  at  eight  or  ten  dol- 
lars a  week.  Assiduously  he  avoided  his  for- 
mer haunts,  seldom  venturing  north  of  Four- 
teenth Street.  He  lived  in  a  bare  room,  fur- 
nished with  a  mean  cot  and  a  rickety  wooden 
chair,  far  down  on  the  West  Side  near  the 
docks;  paying  for  this  accommodation  the  sum 
of  two  and  one  half  dollars  a  week. 

"Utterly  unfitted  for  any  gainful  work,  he 
had  to  be  content  with  the  smallest  tasks ;  and, 
as  his  food  grew  poorer  and  less  nourishing, 
his  strength  ebbed.  In  the  morning  he  had  to 
drive  himself  to  work,  his  legs  trembling,  and 
his  body  shivering  in  the  crisp  air  from  the 
river  front.  It  was  bitterly  hard  to  plod  all 
the  way  across  and  up  town  to  the  loft  build- 
ing in  lower  Fourth  Avenue,  where  for  ten 
hours  a  day  he  addressed  envelopes  in  a 
wabbly,  tremulous  hand. 

"Then  he  was  discharged  for  bad  penman- 
ship, which  was  actually  nothing  but  the  re- 
sult of  his  shattered  nerves.  That  was  only  a 
few  months  before  he  wandered  into  my  office. 
Meantime  he  had  developed  tuberculosis." 

Heanage  paused.  "I  think  that  about  fin- 
ishes the  story/' 

"But,  what  became  of  Jim?"  I  insisted. 


"ARE  YOU  COUNTING  THE  COST?"  199 


"Were  you  able  to  put  him  on  his  feet  again — 
after  all?" 

"I  told  you  that  they  took  him  to  the  hos- 
pital. I  hurried  there  at  once  from  the  hotel, 
and  I  saw  that  the  last  crisis  had  come. 

"I  asked  them  if  I  could  stay  with  him;  and 
they  broke  the  rules  for  once.  All  night  I  sat 
in  an  armchair  beside  the  long  narrow  white 
bed,  set  high  up  from  the  floor  like  those  hos- 
pital cots  are,  you  know.  Only  a  shaded  night 
lamp  was  burning. 

1 'Toward  dawn,  just  as  the  sky  outside  be- 
gan to  get  gray,  I  heard  a  voice  from  the  pil- 
low. I  leaned  forward,  but  Jim's  eyes  were 
still  shut.  He  lay  there,  rigid,  his  thin  hands, 
above  the  sheets,  folded  on  his  breast.  He 
wasn't  exactly  singing;  just  droning  in  a  sing- 
song monotone. 

"I  made  out  the  words  faintly: 

"Are  you  counting  the  cost,  are  you  counting  the  cost? 
When  your  Lord  you  refuse,  are  you  counting  the  cost? 
Do  you  know  without  Jesus  your  Soul  will  be  lost? 
When  your  Lord  you  refuse  are  you  counting  the  cost?" 

"On  and  on  went  that  dead  monotone  from 
his  gray  lips. 

"Your  Savior  is  calling  from  Calvary's  tree 
His  sacrifice  can  you  refuse 


200    "ARE  YOU  COUNTING  THE  COST?" 


Eeject  his  salvation  so  pleasant  and  free 
Your  hope  of  eternity  lose?" 

"The  voice  became  somewhat  stronger.  I 
could  catch  the  echo  of  the  tune,  a  little  shaky, 
but  firm  enough  to  distinguish  it,  with  over 
and  over  again  the  same  refrain,  'Are  You 
Counting  the  Cost?' 

"It  was  quite  light  by  this  time.  For  a 
moment  I  turned  my  attention  away,  and 
looked  out  of  the  window.  The  ragged  edge 
of  the  roof  tops  of  the  tenements  across  the 
street  was  dead  black  against  the  pale  glow  of 
the  sky  at  dawn ;  early  trucks  rumbled  by,  and 
now  and  then  rose  the  clatter  of  a  milk  wagon. 

"A  terrible  paroxysm  of  coughing  drew  me 
back  sharply.  Jim  had  half-risen,  propped 
weakly  on  his  elbows.  Through  his  coughing 
the  words  of  the  hymn  came  again  and  gradu- 
ally clearer: 

"O,  shall  not  your  labor  be  worse  than  in  vain 
If  thereby  you  lose  your  own  soul? 
Are  you  counting  the  cost,  are  you  counting — " 

"He  dropped  back  limply.  I  jumped  for 
the  bellcord  and  pushed  the  button  for  the 
nurse.  She  came  running  silently,  with  only 
the  swish  of  her  skirts  to  herald  her. 

"I  must  get  the  doctor!"  she  cried. 


"ARE  YOU  COUNTING  THE  COST?"  201 


"Bending  close  above  the  bed,  I  searched 
for  a  sign  of  life  in  Jim's  face,  but  the  features 
were  set,  his  skin  a  gray-like  parchment. 
Then,  weakly,  his  big,  hollow  eyes  opened,  and 
his  lips  moved. 

"I — I  guess  I  have  found  the  cost — after  all, 
old  man!" 


If  Your  Heart  Keeps  Right. 


^         -  p  •  -  pn — irT7- 

1.  If    the  dark  shad-ovrs  gath-er  As  yon  go    a-  long,  Do  not  griere  for  their" 

2.  Is   your  life  jost  a  tan-gle,Full  of  toil  and  care? Smile  a  bit  as  yoe 

3.  There  are  blossom*  of  gladness  'Neath  the  winter's  snow;  From  the  r>#«  and  the 


com  -  fog,  Sing  a  cheer  -  y  song!  There  is  joy  for  the  tak-ing;  It  wsl 
jour- ney,  Oth -ers'  bur- dens  share;  You'll  for  •  get  all  your  troubles,  Mak-inf 
dark-noss  Comes themoming'sglow; Ney  -  er  give  up  the  bat -tie,  Ton  wfll 

Jit  ?  ilm  f  f  ,  .  ]L.  *  £  7  «  <f 


soon  be  light,— Er-'ry  cloud  wears  a  rain-bow,  If  your  heart  keeps  right, 
their  lire*  bright;  Skies  will  grow  blue  and  sun  -ny,  If  your  heart  keeps  right, 
win    the  fight,  Gain  the  rest    of  the  Vic -tor,  If  your  heart  keeps  right. 


If  your  heart  keeps  right,  If  your  heart  keeps  right,  There's  a  song  <el 


glad-nesa  in  the  dark  -  est  night;  If  yonr  heart  keeps  right,  If  your 


202 


"IF  YOUR  HEART  KEEPS  RIGHT"  203 

If  Your  Heart  Keeps  Right. 


h 

*  '3 

heart  keeps right,  E v-'ry  cloud  will  wear  a  rain-bow,  If  your  heart  keepi  right. 


XI 


"if  your  heart  keeps  right" 

If  the  dark  shadows  gather  as  you  go  along, 
Do  not  grieve  for  their  coming,  sing  a  cheery  song! 
There  is  joy  for  the  taking:  it  will  soon  be  light, — 
Every  cloud  wears  a  fainbow,  if  your  heart  keeps  right. 

A  great  many  people  make  a  mistake  in 
estimating  the  worth  of  gospel  songs.  A  song 
for  use  in  gospel  meetings  is  not  always  a  gem 
of  classical  music,  and  if  it  were,  it  would  per- 
haps not  do  the  work  for  which  it  was  designed. 

This  may  seem  unreasonable,  but  the  basis 
for  the  statement  is  grounded  on  the  experi- 
ence, not  only  of  gospel  workers  but  of  musi- 
cians. 

No  song  or  piece  of  music  which  has  had  the 
human  quality  of  touching  hearts  was  ever  per- 
fect, from  the  musician's  standpoint.  For 
perfection  in  any  art  means  that  those  who 
appreciate  the  finished  product  must  be  able 
to  understand  the  finer  technical  beauties, 
rather  than  the  more  simple  soul  qualities. 
Therefore,  those  songs  which  have  stirred  hu- 

204 


"IF  YOUR  HEART  KEEPS  RIGHT"  205 


man  hearts  and  souls  the  most  have  always 
been  the  simpler  melodies,  which  a  child  can 
learn  and  feel. 

So,  in  judging  a  song  which  does  not  hap- 
pen to  meet  your  personal  standard  of  require- 
ments, please  remember  that  there  are  other 
folks  with  other  standards;  and  that,  while  you 
may  be  drawn  to  a  song  because  of  its  perfect 
technical  construction  and  dignity,  the  great 
mass  of  us  are  not  highly  educated,  musically, 
and  must  be  appealed  to  from  angles  which  we 
can  understand. 

The  songs,  which  we  have  used  in  our  cam- 
paigns, have  had  their  amazing  popularity  be- 
cause those  who  wrote  them  were  consecrated 
men  and  women,  and  experienced  in  sounding 
the  depths  of  souls ;  and  in  those  depths,  every 
man  is  equal,  as  he  stands  before  God.  The 
most  intellectual  mind  is  no  more  able  to  ap- 
proach Him  than  the  veriest  publican,  who  can 
reach  out  only  with  those  intense  human  feel- 
ings, which  are  common  to  all  of  us. 

This,  too,  is  the  real  reason  why  intellectual 
people  are  no  more  Godly  than  those  with  less 
opportunities  of  education.  It  is  the  practical 
everyday  thing  of  life  with  which  we  are  mostly 
concerned,  wise  and  unlearned,  and  so  the  won- 
derfully practical,  helpful  messages  in  many 


206    "IF  YOUR  HEART  KEEPS  RIGHT" 


of  our  gospel  songs  reach  right  down  to  the 
needs  of  everybody. 

Unless  you  have  studied  the  psychology  of 
this  appeal  as  we  have  done  through  years  of 
work,  you  will  not  understand  this  fact  readily. 

A  beautiful  story  is  concerned  with  the  song 
"If  Your  Heart  Keeps  Right,"  and  illustrates 
this  point  excellently. 

For  a  long  time  that  song  wTas  one  of  the 
most  popular  we  had.  It  would  spread  like 
wildfire  through  a  community.  Two  elements 
made  its  success,  the  two  elements  which  have 
always  made  a  song  popular  and  helpful,  an 
easy,  pleasing  melody,  and  a  message  which 
strikes  right  down  to  the  roots  of  human  hearts. 

In  Pittsburg,  for  instance,  the  song  seemed 
fairly  to  permeate  the  life  of  the  city.  Boys 
whistled  it  on  the  streets,  women  sang  it  at 
their  housework  and  staid  business  men 
hummed  it  in  their  offices.  In  the  great  steel 
plants,  vaguely,  in  the  midst  of  the  roar  of 
machinery,  you  could  hear  men  singing,  "If 
Your  Heart  Keeps  Right."  The  degree  and 
extent  to  which  the  song  permeated  all  the  dif- 
ferent stratas  of  life  were  really  surprising, 
even  to  us,  who  had  grown  accustomed  to  its 
power. 

The  particular  story  I  have  in  mind  was 


"IF  YOUR  HEART  KEEPS  RIGHT"  207 


told  to  me  when  I  was  invited  to  the  Shadyside 
Presbyterian  church,  one  of  the  wealthiest  and 
most  fashionable  of  that  city  of  many  wonder- 
ful churches.  The  audience  was  made  up  of 
the  aristocracy  of  the  city,  but  they  seemed  in- 
tensely interested  in  hearing  me  tell  some  of 
the  stories  of  our  songs  and  their  results. 

I  spoke,  too,  about  the  relationship  of  the 
songs  to  our  campaign,  in  general,  and  of  the 
great  work  for  God  which  had  been  accom- 
plished by  them.  When  I  had  finished,  a  very 
fine  looking,  sweet  faced  woman,  in  a  gown, 
whose  quiet  elegance  told  of  her  good  taste  and 
position,  approached  me,  and  said,  "I  have  a 
confession  to  make. 

"When  the  Sunday  campaign  first  started 
and  I  heard  your  song,  "If  Your  Heart  Keeps 
Right,"  I  was  really  disgusted.  It  seemed  to 
me  that  it  was  silly,  cheap  twaddle.  I  know 
that  those  are  extreme  words,  but  I  told  you 
that  it  was  a  confession  I  had  to  make  and  that 
is  it.  So  I  will  not  hide  the  fact  that  I  disliked 
some  of  your  songs,  and  that  this  song,  in  par- 
ticular, offended  what  I  chose  to  call  my  fas- 
tidious musical  taste.  It  really  grated  on  my 
nerves,  and  besides,  I  considered  that  it  was  not 
at  all  in  keeping  with  the  dignity  of  a  religious 
campaign. 


208     "IF  YOUR  HEART  KEEPS  RIGHT" 


"But,  you  see,  I  did  not  understand.  I  was 
viewing  that  song  from  a  narrow  biased  stand- 
point. 

"You  know  that  I  have  always  been  inter- 
ested in  the  deserving  poor — so  that  sometimes 
employers  with  whom  I  am  acquainted  ask  me 
to  see  to  some  special  cases  for  them.  It  hap- 
pened that  the  head  of  a  great  steel  corpora- 
tion asked  me  to  call  on  the  wife  of  a  man  who 
had  been  hurt  in  the  mill,  and  investigate  the 
real  facts. 

"The  street  to  which  I  was  directed  was 
quite  unfamiliar  to  me,  and,  as  a  part  of  my 
confession,  I  must  add  that  I  was  frightened 
when  I  saw  the  rough  district  through  which 
the  street  car  was  taking  me. 

"The  point  for  which  I  was  bound  seemed 
the  worst  of  all,  and  I  found  that  I  would  have 
to  go  over  a  hill  to  reach  the  address  I  was 
looking  for.  There  were  some  rough  looking 
men  hanging  about,  and  I  was  growing  more 
and  more  nervous. 

"I  could  not  find  the  number  of  Bill  Jones' 
house — the  man  who  was  hurt.  There  was  no 
one,  apparently,  to  aid  me  except  the  men,  that 
I  felt  were  surveying  me  with  glowering  looks. 

"I  screwed  up  my  courage,  at  last,  turned 
back,  and  with  my  heart  beating  rapidly,  I 


"IF  YOUR  HEART  KEEPS  RIGHT"  209 


went  up  to  one  of  them,  and  asked  if  he  knew 
where  Bill  Jones  lived. 

"I  was  never  so  surprised  in  my  life.  The 
man  at  once  removed  his  cap,  and  smiled.  He 
said  that  he  knew  the  house,  and  would  walk 
there  with  me.  The  rest  of  the  men  also  smiled 
at  me,  and  I  was  suddenly  ashamed  of  my 
fears  of  them.  We  walked  along  as  pleas- 
antly as  though  we  were  old  friends,  and  fin- 
ally he  asked  me: 

"  'Lady,  have  you  been  down  to  the  Tab- 
ernacle yet?' 

"I  was  surprised.  Someway  or  other,  you 
know,  in  looking  over  the  vast  crowd  which 
filled  the  Tabernacle,  it  had  not  occurred  to  me 
to  think  that  men  like  these  had  been  there. 

"I  was  still  more  surprised  when  my  new 
friend  said: 

"  'Well,  that  place  has  made  a  great  change 
in  some  of  us  fellows  over  here.' 

"I  asked  him  to  tell  me  about  it,  and  after 
speaking  of  various  cases  he  said  that  he  sup- 
posed I  would  be  most  interested  in  hearing 
about  Bill  Jones,  so  he  went  on: 

"  'Well,  Bill  was  always  a  good  fellow. 
Meant  well,  you  know,  but  the  trouble  was,  he 
couldn't  keep  away  from  the  drink.  He  had 
a  nice  little  wife  and  a  baby,  and  every  once  in 


210    "IF  YOUR  HEART  KEEPS  RIGHT" 


so  often  he  would  promise  that  now  he  was  go- 
ing to  stop,  for  good,  but  the  first  thing  we 
knew,  he  would  be  at  work,  swearing  at  every- 
one, with  whiskey  on  his  breath. 

"  'Then,  one  night,  he  went  down  to  the  Tab- 
ernacle. I  guess  his  wife  got  him  to  go. 
Anyway,  before  long  a  lot  of  us  had  taken  our 
stand  for  Christ,  and  along  with  us,  Bill.  He 
was  a  changed  man.  Before  he  was  hurt  and 
taken  away  to  the  hospital,  you  could  hear 
him,  most  any  time,  hurnmin'  some  of  the  songs 
they  sing  down  there.  "If  Your  Heart  Keeps 
Right,"  was  his  favorite,  and  I  guess  it  is  the 
favorite  of  most  of  us.' 

"Right  there  was  where  I  felt  as  if  I  ought 
to  beg  his  pardon  for  the  thoughts  I  had  held 
about  that  song. 

"But  just  then  we  came  to  the  plain  little 
cottage  where  he  said  Bill  lived,  so  we  shook 
hands,  with  hearty  good  will  and  parted. 

"I  had  to  climb  down  some  very  rickety 
steps,  for  the  poor  place  was  below  the  level 
of  the  street,  and  as  I  did  so  I  heard  some  one 
singing.  'Every  cloud  will  wear  a  rainbow  if 
your  heart  keeps  right.'  I  walked  quietly  to 
the  door  and  looked  into  a  very  neat,  clean 
room,  but  oh,  so  poorly  furnished.  There  was 
a  woman  in  it,  sitting  in  the  only  rocking  chair, 


"IF  YOUR  HEART  KEEPS  RIGHT"  211 

and  on  her  lap  there  lay  a  very  frail,  wan 
baby. 

"She  had  one  of  the  Tabernacle  song  books 
open.  I  recognized  it  at  once,  and  I  think  I 
was  not  surprised  when  her  clear,  true  voice 
kept  on  with  the  words  of  the  very  song  which 
I  had  so  disliked.  But  now  it  brought  tears 
to  my  eyes.  For  she  was  very  pale  and  worn 
and  shabby — a  weak  little  woman,  with  big 
tender  eyes,  and  she  looked  off  into  a  distant 
corner  of  the  room,  as  if  she  had  her  attention 
fixed  on  a  pleasant  vision,  while  she  sang: 

"If  Your  Heart  Keeps  Right 
If  your  heart  keeps  right 
There's  a  song  of  gladness 
In  the  darkest  night. 
If  Your  Heart  Keeps  Right 
If  your  heart  keeps  right 
Every  cloud  will  wear  a  rainbow 
If  your  heart  keeps  right." 

"She  saw  me  before  she  was  quite  through 
with  the  verse,  but  she  kept  on  as  she  smiled 
and  held  out  her  hand. 

"Although  she  was  so  poor,  there  was  a  quiet 
self-possession  about  her  which  comes  from 
self-respecting  womanhood.  I  told  her  that 
her  husband's  employer  had  sent  me  to  see  if 
there  was  anything  she  needed.    She  said  that 


212     "IF  YOUR  HEART  KEEPS  RIGHT" 

her  great  worry  was  not  having  enough  money 
— at  least,  money  that  she  could  spare — to  go 
over  to  the  hospital  to  see  her  husband.  She 
wanted  to  visit  him  very  much. 

"I  told  her  I  thought  that  could  be  arranged. 
And  then  I  asked  her  if  she  liked  the  song  she 
had  been  singing.  You  should  have  seen  her 
face  light  up. 

"Oh,  yes,  indeed,  she  loved  it!  She  had 
found  such  a  lot  of  comfort  out  of  the  Taber- 
nacle songs,  especially  this  one. 

"I  saw  that  she  was  interested  in  music,  and 
soon  she  was  telling  me  the  whole  story  of  Bill 
and  herself. 

"  'Back  in  England,'  she  said,  'my  father 
was  the  leader  of  the  choir  in  our  little  church, 
and  I  played  the  organ.  You  know  the  sort 
of  life,  ma'am — quiet  like,  and  pleasant,  but 
with  no  chance  to  get  ahead.  So,  when  Bill 
and  I  married,  we  came  over  here  with  others 
to  seek  our  fortune  in  the  new  land. 

"  'Things  went  like  a  bit  of  all  right  for  a 
while,  but  then  Bill  got  in  with  bad  company 
and  started  to  drink.  At  first  it  wasn't  so  bad, 
Then  he  lost  the  best  job  he  had  ever  had. 

"  'That  discouraged  him,  and  he  took  to 
drinking  harder  than  ever.  Even  the  baby 
didn't  keep  him  from  it.    We  had  to  sell  off 


"IF  YOUR  HEART  KEEPS  RIGHT"  213 


most  of  the  good  furniture  we  had  been  able 
to  buy.  Then  we  had  to  move  from  one  place 
to  another  until  we  came  down  to  this  place. 
I'm  afraid  it's  unhealthy,  but  it  is  all  we  can 
afford.  Things  were  going  from  bad  to  worse, 
ma'am,  and  I  didn't  know  what  to  do. 

"  'Then  some  of  the  boys  went  down  to  the 
Tabernacle.  I  think  most  of  them  went  on  a 
lark,  as  you  might  say,  but  they  came  back 
pretty  serious,  and  their  wives  told  me  what  a 
change  had  come  to  them. 

"  'So  I  finally  persuaded  Bill  to  go,  too. 
The  third  time  he  was  converted!  You  can't 
think  what  that  was  to  me,  ma'am ! 

"  'He  stopped  his  drinking  right  away,  and 
the  next  payday  after  that  he  brought  his  en- 
velope home  to  me,  unopened.  And  kept  on 
doing  that,  too. 

u  'I  bought  that  nice,  new  rug  you  see  there, 
and  we  had  started  to  fix  up  the  house  a  little, 
when  Bill  was  hurt  the  other  day  and  taken 
to  the  hospital.  But  I  don't  think  he  will  be 
kept  there  long,  do  you?' 

"Then  I  asked  her  some  casual  questions, 
and  she  began  to  talk  about  the  different  songs, 
in  the  course  of  which  she  told  me  something 
which  I  think  is  the  most  affecting  and  touch- 
ing tribute  to  the  songs  that  I  have  ever  heard. 


3U    "IF  YOUR  HEART  KEEPS  RIGHT" 


That  song  book  was  the  only  one  in  the  whole 
neighborhood.  They  were  all  very  poor,  in 
the  district.  So  the  neighbor  who  had  been 
able  to  buy  the  solitary  songbook  loaned  it  out 
first  to  one  family  and  then  another,  so  that 
all  might  learn  to  sing  the  songs.  This  was 
Mrs.  Jones'  'day'  for  the  book. 

"She  gave  me  a  wonderful  smile  as  she  said 
at  the  end  that,  although  things  looked  blue 
and  discouraging,  she  believed  in  the  promise 
of  the  rainbow  over  the  clouds  'if  your  heart 
keeps  right.' 

"Her  face  was  pale,  and  her  little  baby  was 
pale,  and  her  house  was  poor,  and  all  sorts  of 
difficulties  lay  before  her  and  her  husband,  be- 
fore they  could  overcome  the  troubles  brought 
on  them  by  sin,  but  I  knew  that  that  rainbow 
of  God's  love  had  begun  to  shine  there." 

All  through  the  simple,  affecting  telling  of 
that  story  you  could  see  tears  and  smiles  sweep- 
ing across  the  faces  of  the  splendid  women,  who 
listened  with  such  strained  attention.  There 
was  a  little  pause  as  the  speaker  stopped  to  re- 
gain her  composure,  and  then  she  turned  to 
me,  and  said: 

"I  want  to  apologize  for  what  I  thought  and 
said  about  that  song.  I  think,  now,  that  it  is 
one  of  the  most  beautiful  I  know.    Any  song 


"IF  YOUR  HEART  KEEPS  RIGHT"  215 


which  can  bring  joy  and  happiness  to  a  whole 
neighborhood  as  that  has  done,  merits  the  con- 
sideration, and  the  help  of  those  who  may  not 
need  it  in  the  same  way." 

Of  course,  we  sang  the  chorus  of  "If  Your 
Heart  Keeps  Right."  Then  we  closed  the 
meeting,  and  those  wealthy  women  flocked 
around  her  who  had  told  the  story.  As  they 
did  so  I  saw  that  most  of  them  had  money  con- 
cealed in  their  fingers,  which  they  slipped  to 
her  as  secretly  as  they  could. 

So  I  was  sure  that  material  prosperity  would 
be  added  to  that  other  and  greater  happiness 
which  the  little  woman  in  the  cottage  had 
found. 

People  struggle  and  flounder  against  what 
seems  impossible  difficulties,  not  recognizing 
that  sinfulness,  in  one  of  its  many  forms,  is 
the  cause  of  their  troubles.  I  do  not  mean  to 
say  that  conversion  is  a  guarantee  of  prosper- 
ity. But  I  do  mean  that  often  godliness 
makes  people  take  the  right  road,  to  which 
sin  has  blinded  them. 

One  of  the  most  interesting  stories  about 
this  song  concerns  a  newsboy  in  New  York. 

He  was  drawn  to  the  vicinity  of  the  Tab- 
ernacle by  the  idea  that  he  could  sell  to  the 


£16    "IF  YOUR  HEART  KEEPS  RIGHT" 


crowds  the  evening  papers.  He  heard  the 
singing,  and  went  in. 

He  had  never  been  in  church  in  his  life,  so 
that  the  gospel  of  Christ  fell  upon  virgin 
ground  and  at  once,  and  amazingly,  took  root. 

He  shook  Mr.  Sunday's  hand,  and,  in  his 
own  quaint  phraseology,  which  I  despair  of 
reproducing,  he  told  the  worker  who  took  his 
name  that  "dose  guys"  were  all  right,  referring 
to  the  members  of  the  party.  As  for  the  songs, 
he  thought  they  were  "grand." 

After  that  we  would  see  him,  occasionally, 
and  one  day  a  policeman  who  had  been  con- 
verted the  night  before  told  a  worker  that  the 
newsboy's  persistent  singing  of  "If  Your 
Heart  Keeps  Right"  had  drawn  him  to  come, 
himself,  and  see  what  the  meetings  were  like. 

"The  boy  has  his  stand  near  a  corner  which 
I  frequently  pass,"  the  officer  said,  "and  I  be- 
gan to  notice  a  difference  in  him.  He  used  to 
get  into  fights  with  the  other  boys,  for  he's 
Irish  and  quick  tempered,  but  I  saw  that  when 
he  felt  like  a  scrimmage  he  would  begin  to 
whistle  instead  and  it  would  always  be  the  tune, 
'If  Your  Heart  Keeps  Right.'  So  we  got  to 
talking,  and  he  told  me  that  he  had  been  con- 
verted, and  asked  me  if  I  wouldn't  come  up  to 
the  Tabernacle  when  I  could.    So  I  did,  thank 


"IF  YOUR  HEART  KEEPS  RIGHT"  217 


God,  and  now  I'm  going  on  my  way  rejoic- 
mg. 

A  very  intimate  sort  of  a  story  was  told  to 
one  of  our  workers,  once.  The  speaker  was 
an  unusually  intelligent,  fine  looking  girl,  with 
just  a  hint  of  sadness  in  her  eyes. 

"I  began  coming  to  the  Tabernacle  when 
you  folks  first  came  to  this  city.  Then,  one 
evening,  you  sang,  'My  Wonderful  Dream.' 
I  can't  tell  you  how  it  affected  me,  but  you 
must  know,  how  people  often  feel  about  these 
songs.  They  simply  seem  to  mean  YOU. 
Then  Mr.  Sunday  said,  in  his  talk,  that  many 
so-called  Christians  came  to  church,  appar- 
ently only  to  keep  the  bench  warm,  and  that 
seemed  to  be  ME,  too. 

"I  thought  with  shame  of  my  own  sleepy 
Christian  life,  and  determined  that  I  would 
keep  busy  for  God.  I  have  done  what  I  could. 
At  the  present  time  I  am  working  hard  with  a 
Bible  class  in  my  neighborhood. 

"But  I  have  had  a  personal  sorrow  to  bear. 
The  young  man  to  whom  I  was  engaged  made 
fun  of  my  intense  feeling,  and  when  I  told 
him  that  I  was  firmly  decided  in  my  intention 
of  giving  my  life  to  God,  he  said  he  did  not 
care  to  marry  a  Christian  girl.  He  told  me  he 
wanted  something  different. 


£18    "IF  YOUR  HEART  KEEPS  RIGHT" 


"If  ever  I  needed  the  Lord  it  was  at  that 
time,  and  I  found  Him  a  friend  in  need.  He 
has  proved  a  true  friend  to  me  ever  since. 
Even  some  of  my  girl  friends  do  not  ask  me  to 
their  homes  any  more,  as  they  say  I  spoil  their 
fun. 

"So,  although  I  know  I  am  doing  right,  I 
so  often  feel  lonely  and  blue.  One  night,  in 
particular,  it  didn't  seem  that  I  could  stand  it, 
and  I  came  to  the  Tabernacle.  That  evening 
they  sang  'If  Your  Heart  Keeps  Right.'  You 
can't  imagine  what  a  difference  it  meant  to  me ! 
It  seemed  to  sweep  away  all  my  doubt  and 
struggle  instantly." 

As  she  left,  there  seemed,  indeed,  the  light 
of  the  heavenly  "rainbow"  on  her  glowing  face. 


THE  END 


